The Seventh Rose
by GirlInCafe
Summary: They were christened the same person but live completely different lives. On her way back to the doctor, Rose meets someone entirely unexpected. AU rewrite of the latter half of season 4.
1. Light Patterns

On the last mostly normal day of her life, Rose Marion Tyler awoke in a strange bed.

Her life had been the normal series of random accidents and wondrous mishaps, but now, they coalesced into an intricate and unbreakable pattern. Although the delicate balance of the universe had been disturbed, only the stars knew it. The sun warned her by setting five minutes late. The galaxy compensated by shifting slightly to the right. A green light flashed across the sky, froze for a millionth of a second, and then was captured by a pair of large hazel eyes.

But that had nothing to do with the fact that she wasn't in her bedroom.

Rose turned over and groaned. Jumbled recollections from the night before filled her brain. She had been drinking at the pub, she definitely remembered dancing with—oh god—

"Shareen!" she yelped, voice slightly muffled by a navy blue pillow of indifferent cleanliness. Her friend appeared quickly, with a grin that did not look promising.

"Morning. Do you want any breakfast?"

"Shareen, why am I at your brother's flat?" _And in his bed, _she added silently.

"You crashed here last night." she answered lightly.

"I— look, Shareen, last night, I didn't…"

"Didn't do what?" Shareen asked, examining her nails.

"Anything." Her eyes closed in humiliation.

"What, don't you remember?" she smiled innocently.

Rose growled at her.

"Down girl. You didn't sleep with anyone, you just had a few drinks…."

She relaxed a little.

"…danced on the table, tried to sing Madonna, got us kicked out of the bar, drunk-dialed Mickey, and threw up on your boss's new girlfriend!" finished Shareen, starting to giggle.

Rose flushed scarlet. "Oh God. Which one?" she moaned.

"I dunno. How _you_ keep track is beyond me. What do you think you're doing?"

Rose had jumped out of bed and was starting to collect her things.

"I'm late for work."

"You're always working! You should have more fun in life…you are not going out in that."

Despite herself, Rose stopped. "What's wrong with my outfit?"

"It's the same one you wore yesterday! What kind of friend would I be if I didn't stop you?"

Rose shook her head. "I don't have time for this." She made to continue dressing, but Shareen grabbed her wrist.

"I'll be back in a tick," she promised, and reappeared with a bundle of what she considered 'suitable.'

"You call that…. stripper outfit a dress?"

"Your jacket will cover it."

Rose would have liked to argue, but she didn't have the time. She dressed quickly and fled the flat.

As she ran, the estate began to wake up around her. Mrs. O'Reilly was letting her cat out, and the couple in 15B had started their daily argument. She passed the postman at a run, managing only a quick wave to his "Mornin' Rose" and nearly got run over by Officer Daniels on his morning patrol.

"For god's sake girl, watch where you're running!" he snapped, rolling down his window. When she didn't react, he drove off, muttering something about inattentive blonds.

She reached the diner where she worked in the morning with seconds to spare, huffing and puffing in a way that would have done the big bad wolf proud. She knelt beneath the red awning of the diner to massage her ankle briefly.

"Rose! Thank goodness you made it, Delia's already late. Blimey, you alright?"

Rose had tried to spin round and get up at the same time, and had nearly fallen.

"I'm fine, thanks, Charlie." Rose said.

"Good. That's good. Umm… the General is spitting mad." The speaker had light brown hair and astonishingly blue eyes.

Rose blinked. "What! Oh no, is it that blasted espresso machine again? I don't know why he doesn't just replace it."

Charlie offered an embarrassed smile. He was rubbish with electronics.

"I'll do it," she sighed, deciding to focus on the one thing she could help. As she passed him he opened his mouth to say something, and a flash of memory returned from the night before. Great. It was the General's girlfriend that—ah well, too late now.

Ten minutes later, the diner opened, and both Rose and Charlie were swamped with the usual morning rush. Rose whirled, taking orders from the customers, exchanging jokes with regulars, and helping Charlie man the espresso bar.

At last, the breakfast rush was over, and only a few people remained. Rose was talking to Charlie while having breakfast at the bar when the doorbell jangled.

"How can I help you, sir?" asked Delia the hostess in a voice that told Rose that the stranger was good-looking, and also that Delia had argued with her husband the night before.

Rose hastily put down her muffin so that she could interfere. She couldn't have Delia flirting with the poor man; her bear of a husband would strangle him if he happened to walk by.

"Would you like some coffee?" she asked politely. He was fit, she'd give Delia that. His head snapped round and he looked at her oddly. It was as if he had never seen a woman before. Rose flushed, uncomfortably aware that her hair was a mess and that she hadn't showered.

"Not if I'm interrupting your breakfast," the stranger replied. Rose realized that she still had crumbs on her chin, and hastily wiped it.

"It's no trouble, sir really," she promised, feeling a bit off-balance.

"Some tea, thank you," he said, his grin slightly suggestive. _His eyes are gorgeous _she realized.

"Glad to find someone who isn't completely Americanized," she teased. "Would you like any breakfast with that sir?"

Delia glared at her, and Rose met her gaze steadily. _It's really not worth it_ Rose told her silently_. _Delia huffed and went back to hostessing. The customer looked from her to Delia's retreating back, amused. Embarrassed, Rose realized how their staring match must have looked.

"Do you have any banana muffins?" Damn! She had taken the last one.

"No sir, but we do have banana pancakes with a side of eggs and hash-browns." This time she was all business, allowing no other emotion to cross her face.

"I'll take that then."

By the time Rose finished her shift, she was running late again. Today was Monday, and on Mondays she worked at a department store. If it was the weekend, she would have been fine, she worked in her friend Sally's shop then and Sally always understood when she was late.

If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed the two tall men that entered the diner once she left, or at least heard the door jangling shut behind them.

When she left Temmels at 5:00 precisely, she saw her mysterious customer again. He was wearing different clothes, and in what seemed to be a rather serious argument with some woman; her shrieks could be heard from across the park. He seemed to be trying to calm her down. There was someone else with them, but she quickly forgot the incident when she saw the time.

Arriving at her last job, she let the familiar contentment wash over her. Her days were full of work and precious little else, but in the evenings, she taught gymnastics to the under-sevens class at Beckindale's gym. She loved everything about it; the gleaming mirrors, the broken water cooler, and the bright, enthusiastic, lazy or sullen faces of her students.

"Ms. Rose, Becky says that Suzie might be absent this week," reported Lila.

"Are you sure?" Rose asked. Her little lieutenant nodded glumly. "Well, why don't we give her some time anyway."

Raising her voice, Rose shouted "Freestyle for an extra ten minutes, girls," and smiled at their evident delight.

The gym was a little more crowded than usual, and her class ended late because of the absent Suzie. The owner eventually just handed Rose the keys to the gym with an admonishment to lock up carefully. Rose had missed the last bus and briefly debated calling her dad, but it was a warm summer night so she decided to walk. As she walked, she worried about the absent Suzie. The girl had already missed three practices because of her divorcing parents.

Suddenly, she heard a loud crashing noise coming from a nearby alleyway. Turning, she was momentarily blinded by a harsh white-blue light. Rose jumped back, shielding her eyes, and was running before her mind even registered what she had seen. She pulled out her phone to dial 999, but her attacker wrestled her to the ground before she could press send.

"Oof! God you're fast," panted a woman, then, as Rose continued thrashing, "You're okay, I'm not going to hurt you, don't worry."

The voice was somehow familiar.

"Let me up then!"

"Do you promise not to run?"

She shook her head, still wondering where she had heard that voice before.

"Fine," she grunted eventually. The woman released her, and Rose massaged her ankle, biting back a whimper.

"Did I hurt you?" the voice was contrite and a little panicked.

Rose shook her head again. "Old injury."

She looked up, and saw… herself. The woman's hair was shorter and darker, her expression fierce, but apart from that, they could be twins.

Rose reached out a curious hand to touch her face. "I must be going mad. Who are you?"

Other Rose smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. They looked unutterably weary.

"Don't worry you're not going mad. I'm not you, well I am sort of...what on earth are you wearing?"

Somehow, she didn't find the woman's answer reassuring. Then, her comment registered. Rose winced and decided to ignore it. She had always been her own worst critic.

"Listen GI Jane, what do you mean, sort of me? For that matter, why are you _here_?"

"I can't tell you," said other Rose regretfully, "but you'll find out soon enough."

"If you can't tell me why you're here, then why come in the first place?"

The other woman sighed. "Look Rose, very soon you are going to be… dimensionally fluid and I just wanted to warn you. If you wake up somewhere odd, don't panic, play along. I'll find you."

Rose's head spun. This was quite possibly the oddest conversation she had ever had. Despite her alter ego's assurances, she was quite sure that she'd lost it completely. There was so much that she needed to ask, but all that came out was, "What should I call you? I'm not calling you Rose, that's too weird."

"Call me!?" asked Other Rose, sounding incredulous.

"Everyone's got to be called something."

The other woman gave a quick, pained laugh. "Call me…Bad Wolf. It's more accurate than Rose anyway."

Bad Wolf leaned down and picked up the thing that had made the noise back in the alleyway. Rosie jumped back with a gasp. It was a large gun, no— cannon as big as she was, but she held it easily.

"I'm not going to shoot you," Bad Wolf said, exasperated. "This is my ride."

"Where are you going" Rosie asked.

Bad Wolf smiled crookedly. "I don't know!"

Rosie realized that the other woman was frightened. She felt bad for her, although she was only a hallucination. She gave Bad Wolf an encouraging smile before she faded away.

Rose finished her walk home in a daze. Mechanically, she ate the supper that her father had laid out for her, ignoring his questions about her day. She honestly didn't know how to answer him. After dinner, Rose climbed up the rickety stairs and opened her bedroom door, but despite her best efforts, the next morning she awoke in a strange bed again.


	2. Interlude: The Ultimate Question?

"She took it well then," Mickey commented. He, Jake, and Rose were hunched behind his desk, seemingly to look over reports.

"Oh yeah, she's a real sweetheart, unlike the last one." Rose laughed. Mickey smiled, remembering the report, and then frowned.

"One of these days, Rose, you are going to kill yourself," he joked half-heartedly.

"Oh ha-ha," said Rose sarcastically. "What codenames have I used so far?"

Jake flipped through the file. "Well there's Lewis, Curie, Starlet, and Santa Ana. What are we going to call her?"

"Rosie," she said, and catching Mickey's look, "codename Sweetheart."

Their eyes met for an instant, but neither gaze held any answers.


	3. Pantomime

Day 1

Light, there was too much light, and it was much too painful. Rose's head was pounding, her mouth was dry, and worst of all, there was _A Man In Her Bed_.

Rosie desperately tried to get her bearings, but it felt like she was moving through syrup. Luckily, the man was not spooning her, so she stumbled to the bathroom to take a shower. Once there, she groaned. Not only had her bedroom changed, but her bathroom as well. Her old rusty shower had been replaced by a large marble bath, and luxurious jet-stream shower next to it. Inside, there were dozens of hair products, and there was a plethora of makeup on the vanity.

She could no longer pretend that it was a dream. Her breathing became shallow, irregular as she battled with mindless panic. What was going on? Was this some sort of sick joke?

_Just play along _a voice whispered in her mind. She shivered. Apart from what was probably a hangover, her body was ravenous, and had a distinct _just shagged _feel. She didn't need Bad Wolf to tell her that this was not her body; she felt different, clumsy, and out of her depth.

She got in the shower and puzzled through the hair products as best as she could. The hot water pounded against her back, and she tried not to hyperventilate. She was in a strange room, in a strange universe, with a strange man, with only two words that could possibly help her figure out what to do. _Play along_.

"Or what?" she thought defiantly. She wracked her brains to remember what else her mysterious visitor had told her. _Dimensionally displaced _she thought. _I'll dimensionally displace her._ Perhaps she had at that, but she doubted it. Rose hadn't seemed the vain type. _Not Rose _she silently reminded herself _Bad Wolf_. Who was she now?

Feeling significantly calmer once she had showered, Rose reached for the silken bathrobe walked to the mirror. A thinner and seemingly bustier version of herself stared back. The woman's hair was a bit shorter than Rosie's, but still fairly long. Her legs were waxed, her eyebrows perfectly plucked, and her skin was flawless. Rose noted a bit jealously that her hair was not bleached, but dyed an expensive white-gold color with no visible damage or roots showing. There was no way even a makeup artist could have changed her that much in one night.

"Well you're rich, whoever you are," she told the mirror.

When she wondered how she should style her hair, a picture in the corner of the mirror in the vanity caught her eye. Her doppelganger's arms were wrapped around an easy-going looking man with short brown hair. In the picture, her hair was in loose ringlets, and her outfit was oddly formal. Perhaps it was a hint; in any case, she had no reason not to copy the style.

She was almost done when someone pounded on the door. "Hurry up, Rose, we need to leave in a half-an-hour. I'll make us breakfast."

"In a minute," Rosie called, hoping her voice didn't sound as panicked as she felt. She finished fixing her hair, put on some light makeup, and peeked cautiously into the bedroom. He was gone.

Rosie opened the large, walk in closet and noticed a couple suitcases and a hatbox in one corner. The rest of it was full of expensive-looking clothes. She grabbed the most comfortable options she could find, but despaired of finding a pair of sensible shoes.

When she finally walked into the kitchen, the man there whistled appreciatively.

"Au natural suits you," he said. He had natural blond hair that touched his shoulders, and was very handsome.

"Thank you," she said, flashing him a smile. It never hurt to be friendly.

He placed her breakfast on the table for her. It was disappointingly small, but the tea smelled gorgeous. Rosie reached for it.

"Do we have to talk about last night?"

They most certainly did. Who was he and why did he kidnap her! Nothing added up, she could have easily left a dozen times by now. She decided to play it cool.

"Not unless you want too."

"I think, seeing as we're flying out to the film premiere today, we have to."

"I'm listening." She tried to look as neutral and as non-threatening as possible, and he seemed a bit surprised at her politeness.

"Look, Rose, you are a fantastic woman, but Phil is one of my best friends…"

"But I'm not with him anymore, am I?" She stated, testing the waters. Phil must be the man in the photograph.

"No, you're not, but you were engaged to him and…"

She was fairly certain she would have remembered being engaged, but then again, she didn't remember shagging him or dyeing her hair either. "That's fine. Just say the word, and it's forgotten. Phil never has to know."

"It's nothing personal, you are…" his eyes darkened "wonderful Rose, I just…"

"Don't worry about it, really." She sipped her tea.

He looked grateful, but also a bit hurt that she was able to shrug him off so easily.

"Are we good, Rosie?" His tone was tentative.

"Yeah, we're fine. But don't call me Rosie." And that was that.

She and Nate (she had tricked him into telling her his name during breakfast) were apparently driving _separately _to the airport to fly to the Parisian premiere of some movie which they had both starred in after she attended an interview that she would be driven to, and no, she didn't have to change, her outfit was perfect. She changed anyway once he left.

Just as Nate had promised, around 11 o'clock, a man in an old fashioned Rolls-Royce pulled up. She thanked and tipped him before she climbed into the backseat. To her surprise, the backseat included an old-fashioned phone with a twiddly dial thing. It rang almost as soon as she sat down. She answered.

"Hello sweetheart, how was the premiere?" a harassed sounding woman on the other end of the line asked. The woman's accent was posh, but she recognized the voice anyway.

"Mum?" Rose breathed in hopeless confusion._ I really am in an alternate universe _she thought. Her mother had died when she was fourteen. The woman on the other end of the line coughed impatiently. She was still waiting for an answer.

"Well, you know how premieres are," she stalled, suddenly self-conscious. Did Jackie know about Nate?

"To right I do, you've dragged me to enough of them," Jackie laughed. Rosie exhaled. Apparently Marilyn, as she was beginning to think of the person she had replaced, was on good terms with her mother.

"So how's Phil these days, sweetheart?"

"Umm…."

"Now Rose, you have no reason to feel awkward. Remember when Pete up and left? Fifteen years of marriage he threw down the drain, just for quick shag…"

At that point Rose stopped listening. Instead, she concentrated on the memory of her father at dinner last night. He had given her a goodnight kiss, same as he had done almost every night that she could remember. Her mother's silence brought her back to the present.

"Listen, Mum, I've got to cut this short. I've an interview."

About a half a block behind her, another man was on the phone while looking at a map. He seemed to be arguing with the person on the other end. Finally, he lost patience, punched the accelerator, and sped past her, missing the car by less than an inch.

ooo

The journalists asked her a lot of leading questions, so the interviews were easier than she expected. A couple of times Rose got the impression that she was being insulted, but shrugged it off. When _The New York Chronicler_ asked her about her character, and she hemmed and hawed a probable answer. He was content with it. The only questions she really botched were the ones asking about her apparently infamous pranks on set. When it finally ended and she started to walk back to the car, she checked the newspaper headlines.

_Queen Strikes Down Tariff on Foreign Goods _shrieked one,_ British Empire to Collapse? _Inquired another and finally, _Iconic Actress Leaves Boyfriend_.

"As if it was any of their bloody business."

Rosie gasped and spun. The man from the photograph stood behind her, looking at her as if she had shot his grandmother. She might've at that.

He continued, "'_Partners' Actress Dumps Costar_, _Cheating Alleged_; _Wedding of the Century Cancelled, _and my personally favorite _True Love in Crisis, _all cited to 'a source close to them' of course. You're looking old. Why aren't you wearing more makeup?"

"I felt like a change."

He snorted. "More likely you were so hung-over you couldn't move the brush."

Marilyn might deserve that abuse from him, but she certainly did not. "If you're going to be nasty, I'm leaving. What are you doing here anyway?"

He looked at her like she was crazy. "I'm the director, remember?"

"Yes of course, I mean," to cover up her slip, Rose waved an arm to encompass the space around her "here."

"You don't own the sidewalk, Rose."

She turned and began to head towards the car. She wasn't angry at him, it wasn't her place to be, and it was clear 'Marilyn' had hurt him badly.

"Marie!" the shout was desperate

Rosie turned, surprised. He must be referring to her by a nickname, there was no one else that he could be talking to.

"Tell me that you didn't sleep with Nate."

Rose's shock must have shown on her face.

"You didn't, did you? I thought you might have when you left the premiere early but…"

"I didn't."

He glared at her. "Rose, Nate is my best friend, how could you?"

"I didn't" she said, enunciating slowly "sleep with Nathaniel Collins. We were simply heading in the same direction."

She didn't wait for a reply.

At a late lunch with someone who seemed to be her agent, she answered his eager questions about the interviews in monosyllables. She hated Marilyn just a little for the look in Phil's eyes as she walked away. She respected her obvious success, but even with only half the story, Rosie was finding it hard not to judge.

It was only when somebody approached her for an autograph that Rosie shook off her gloom. She gave the couple her best _would you like anything else with that, sir? _smile. She was rather proud of that smile, it calmed down angry customers like no other. The people at the restaurant took it as encouragement, and pressed eagerly in towards her table. In no time, she was hemmed in signing autographs, and her agent was glaring at her. By the end of lunch, crowds of paparazzi haunted the entrances so she had to leave by the back exit in his car.

When Rosie finally reached the airport, she was redirected to the VIP entrance politely but firmly. Once she arrived at the gate, she smiled tentatively at the people she had met during the interviews. Nate gave her a huge wave, but she ignored him in favor of a tiny, vivid brunette who seemed to know her.

"It was completely disgraceful, how they hounded you!" Clara commiserated. "I don't know how you kept your countenance, Rose, if it was me…"

"I'm sure Rose doesn't want to talk about it," interrupted an aristocratic looking older woman who had apparently played her mother-in-law. "Please don't look so miserable my dear, as they say, there will always be Paris."

Rose was saved from answering by Phil's arrival at the check-in stand. Here, airport security was as strict as ever despite the old-fashioned phones, automobiles, fashions, and cinemas. Once on the plane, Rose uncharacteristically ignored all of her companion's conversations and closed her eyes. She couldn't be more ready to sleep.


	4. Interlude: Giant Killer

Nine Months Previously

"Tyler to Control, do you copy!" Bad Wolf gasped.

"Copy that, Agent Tyler. Report current status," the man had the nerve to sound bored.

The beast behind her roared, and redoubled its efforts. A few more seconds and it would have her. "I'm in the wrong universe, and am being pursued by an unidentified life form. Request X-Fil immediately."

"Hold it, Agent Tyler we can't get a read on you. Stick to your current location."

"I can't stick to my current location, I'm being chased by the bloody uncle of all dino-bears." she yelled, the wind snatching away her words.

"Rose, listen to me, we can't transport you unless you stop moving," Mickey's firm voice cut through the line, clearing her head. "We need to know _exactly _where you are."

Snow sprayed in all directions, and the ground itself seemed to groan in protest as the predator closed the gap. Rose scanned her surroundings furiously, until she saw natural outcropping or archway of some sort. A desperate idea took root in her mind.

A few seconds later, the beast stopped, rearing his head in confusion.

"Over here, pea-brain," Rose screamed, surreptitiously turning off her comm. The beast regarded her with astonishment and a touch of disappointment. It wanted her to run.

"I bet your mother tossed you out by your ugly - when she first saw you," she yelled. The beast grumbled and tossed its head. Rose moved backwards until she was pressed against the outcropping. Remembering Cassandra, Rose stuck her nose in the air "I bet you were the school t- and never got kissed!"

That did it. The beast roared and charged her, but she jumped out of the way and he crashed into the archway instead. The ice groaned, the ground trembled, and the beast was buried in a shower of snow and rocks.

The ground continued to tremble, and Rose dropped spread-eagled onto the snow in an attempt to keep her weight distributed evenly. It was no use, the damage was done. Rose closed her eyes as the ground gave way.

"Agent Tyler, do you copy!" Mickey's voice was frantic.

"Mm fmm," she groaned. She spat out a mouthful of snow and swallowed. "Copy that, Agent Smith. I'm in some sort of cavern beneath the surface."

"We'll have you out of there in no time," Mickey promised, relieved.

Rose surveyed her surroundings. The cave was high-ceilinged and synthetic. A long staircase that she knew to be blocked was in one corner, but something in the center was emitting a dim green glow. She approached it carefully, and her eyes widened.

Delay the X-Fil," she requested. "You won't believe what I'm seeing, Mick."


	5. Eye in the Sky

Day 2

Rose jolted awake, disoriented and confused. What a dream! She had been Bad Wolf and—oh, she couldn't remember. She opened her eyes, and her vision flashed green.

There was a man in her bed. He stirred as Rose made to rise and mumbled something in his sleep. She kissed his cheek in a habitual motion that she didn't stop to analyze and he settled again. The clock read 2:15. She stumbled to the door of what must be the bathroom, feeling strangely heavy, and turned the light on.

The woman in the mirror had chestnut-colored hair that brushed her shoulders and was heavily pregnant. _Marilyn must have had a rude awakening_ she thought, and clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a hysterical giggle. She looked at her right hand and was unsurprised to see a ring on it.

She returned to bed and fell into an uneasy sleep. In what felt like seconds later, tiny hands were shaking her and someone's breath was tickling her ear.

"Rose, Rose, wake up!" squealed the voice excitedly. She knew that voice. She sat up so fast that her hair, which was caught under the strange man's elbow was yanked and she yelped. Her husband awoke with a groan.

"Honey, are you alright? Really Tony, you ought to be more careful with your sister. She's growing a baby."

"Sorry Uncle Henry," said the little boy, chastened.

Rose laughed, finally able to react. "I don't mind Henry, really." She scooped Tony up and onto the bed, and hugged him tightly. She had missed him.

"You don't mind being attacked by a rampaging eight year old, or nearly getting partial alopecia from your husband, or…"

"Not one bit," Rosie emphasized her words by poking the boy in the stomach. Tony puffed out his face, trying not to giggle.

"You two are absolutely mad," Henry complained, but his eyes twinkled.

ooo

They breakfasted, or rather Henry and Tony did, as Rose was feeling rather ill. _Morning sickness_, she realized. From the breakfast conversation Rose ascertained that she was six months pregnant, and that she and Henry had been married for fourteen months. Her young husband was a professor, she was a graduate student, and they were on an archaeological dig in Nubia. Tony was staying with them while her parents were on a cruise in the Caribbean.

Rose played with Tony until it was time to dress for the dig, and even wheedled Henry into taking him along. She opened her closet and was a little relieved to find jeans and loose fitting T-shirts this time. She picked a dark blue one that said "noble gases" because she liked the cartoons on the front, and turned around to change.

She stiffened as she felt Henry come up behind her. His arms encircled her waist, and his breath tickled her ear.

"I missed you last night" he murmured in her ear.

"We should head towards the dig," Rosie said, hyperaware that she was half-naked.

Her body was inconveniently becoming aroused and she was acutely aware of the fact that she wasn't… that he wasn't… her thoughts began to trail off as he pressed his lips to the hollow behind her ear.

"Why Mrs. Clarke, is that shyness that I do detect in your tone?" he smiled. "Isn't the point of marriage the eradication of shyness?"

"Umm…" was her well-thought out and articulate answer. He began to kiss her neck, which was simultaneously the most erotic and most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her. His hands rose…

"Water!" she gasped suddenly. Mercifully, Henry stopped.

"What?" He sounded a little annoyed.

"I'm uh… feeling kind of sick and um, can you, that is, will you, get me some water?" Rose finished lamely

"Okay," he said, sounding confused.

"Yogurt too, I haven't had any breakfast."

"We don't have any yogurt."

"Improvise!"

ooo

Later on in the jeep, Tony chattered away about all his new friends in the village, and about Martin and Dean, his best friends back home. He repeatedly told her how excited he was to be in Africa because not even David, who had gone to Greece with his parents the previous summer, had been to Africa. Rose didn't interrupt.

It had rained the day of the accident. She had been arguing with her mother in the car on the way to school about going to a party with Shareen, while it pounded on the windows indifferently. When they had got there, she had jumped out and slammed the car door without saying goodbye. Her baby brother had watched her go solemnly from his car seat.

"Bev wants us to buy her some Kaaahl, and Owen wants a new chess set." Tony told Rose importantly, breaking her out of her gloomy train of thought. Rose was confused. Who on earth were Bev and Owen?

"It's kohl." Henry corrected absently. He held Rose's hand as he drove. He seemed to have chalked her strange behavior back at the house up to pregnancy hormones and had heartily forgiven her.

He was sweet, and handsome enough in a geeky sort of way Rose decided. His hair was a dark blonde, and he was reasonably fit, lithe even, and his glasses failed to hide his unusually colored eyes. _Jade _she thought, and then realized with a start that she was staring.

Henry grinned at her smugly, and squeezed her hand. Rose flushed, embarrassed. _Not my husband, not my husband _she chanted to herself. The real Mrs. Clarke would kill her.

When they arrived at the dig, they were greeted by cheers and wolf-whistles from their fellow workers.

"We thought you two love-birds would never show up!" shouted a familiar voice. Rose stared, she couldn't help it. Mickey! But who was he with?

The older of the two men next to him sniffed. "Clarke, I you need to review the debris is section B.W.1 immediately. Rose, you are needed in the tomb to take notes for Professor Sandberg." He stopped short. "Who's this?"

He was looking at Tony as one might survey a cockroach. "My brother, Professor." For a minute the old man looked like he might explode.

"I'll watch him," promised the foreman, who had a slight Hispanic accent.

Thompson was thrown. "Morales, what is this?"

"I don't want you to feel obligated…" Henry began.

"Obligated? I simply wish to spend time with the one person on this expedition who has a sense of humor."

Tony giggled while Rose and Henry thanked him profusely. She started towards the tomb, but Mickey stopped her.

"Two men came looking for you earlier."

Rose blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Thompson was spitting mad. Apparently they wanted to survey you on how the university treats its female employees."

Frowning, she asked, "What did they look like?"

Mickey opened his mouth to answer, but Thompson shouted at them to stop wasting valuable university time and get to work. Rose entered the tomb, passing the many workmen and trying not to trip over loose rocks in the dim light. The craggy faced Swede spoke to her in rapid-fire English, and she scribbled desperately. As the sun reached its zenith, Professor Sandberg panted and Professor Thompson dabbed at his face with a checked handkerchief, and even Henry began to look uncomfortable. Morales alone seemed unaffected.

She found that there were two other graduate students on the dig, plus Mickey, who was Morales's assistant. The redheaded boy seemed to like her, but the other girl, who was about three years older than her, kept shooting her glares. Rose's mind kept wandering back to her conversation with Mickey. The two men's arrival could be a coincidence, but then again they might not be. The air in the tomb felt oppressive, the desert was an oven, and the fluorescent lights in the caves only seemed to create more shadows.

Sometime around 3 o'clock, she heard a general shout. They had found something! While clearing the debris on the as yet unexplored south end of the Sudanese tomb, Morales had discovered a pavement.

Jolted from her self-absorption, Rose sprang from the rocks where she had been resting and raced towards the sound. Everyone exclaimed over the discovery, but strangely, no one tried to take a picture of it. Startled, Rose realized that she hadn't actually seen anyone with a camera.

"How are they going to copy it?" she asked Henry. He looked down at her, amused.

"The artist should arrive in day or so."

"Why don't… won't the paint have started to flake off by then?"

"We have four canisters of Venusian preservative. It'll survive."

"Don't you mean Venetian," she asked.

Henry laughed. "Good one. It's just a pity that the artist is stuck in Nubian customs."

"I could do it," Rose offered quietly. The grumpy professor heard her.

"That's a wonderful idea. Venusian preservative is the best but the colors tend to fade a bit. Are you proficient, Mrs. Clarke?" for once he sounded respectful.

"Definitely," Mickey answered at once. "She's no da Vinci, but she can capture the emotion behind a painting as well as any artist I've seen."

Rosie felt slightly uncomfortable at the praise, but was happy to see that she had something in common with Kay, or so she had decided to call the woman she had replaced. Perhaps every version of her like to draw, drink tea, and eat chips. The thought made her smile.

She was still smiling when someone shoved a notepad and pencil into her hands. Finally, here was something she could _do_. She couldn't change her own situation, but she could copy this painting. Rose worked steadily until the professor finally called rest, and accepted the praise that her "rough sketch" garnered with pleasure.

The image that she had copied so painstakingly haunted her as she climbed into Henry's pickup truck to drive back to the bungalow. It was of a creature with deep green eyes and seven faces, not all which were human. A symbol of chaos in a culture obsessed with order.

By the time they reached the house that Henry and Kay had rented for the season, her little brother was fast asleep. Henry offered to carry him to bed, but she insisted that she could do it. He looked at her skeptically, but evidently decided not to press the issue.

When she rejoined Henry in the living room, she caught him staring at their wedding photo with the strangest expression on his face.

"Is everything okay, Rose?" He didn't turn to face her.

She played dumb. "What do you mean?"

"It's just; you've been a bit moody lately. You forget the oddest things…"

Rose decided it was expedient to cut him short.

"Whatever I'm going through, and to be completely honest I have no idea what that is, why it's happening, or what to do; it has _nothing _to do with you. You're… perfect, just try to be patient with me for a little while."

ooo

Although Rose was drained by her unexpected pregnancy and the many other surprises of the day, she lay awake and listened to Henry soft snores. When it became clear that sleep was not an option, she got up and sat at Kay's desk. It was full of notes and sketches that she didn't understand but a diary in the corner caught her eye.

On something slightly more than a whim, Rose picked it up. She flipped through it furiously, until she came to a page bearing an unpolished sketch of a cannon. 'Kay' had recorded a similar encounter with Bad Wolf, but hadn't gone into much detail. She too had thought that it was only a hallucination. Frustrated, Rose banged her head against the cool mahogany. Then, struck by an idea, she picked up the pen and began an entry of her own.


	6. Interlude: Russian-roulette

"So, you're telling that my daughter has disappeared, but that I'm not to worry because you've sent every other version of her on a game of musical universes in the hopes that one of these days she will 'pop' in."

Mickey studied the crisp grey carpet of Pete's office to hide his grin. _He's in for it now_ he thought with some satisfaction. The recipient of the remark, a round ball of a man who usually radiated smugness, couldn't quite hide his discomfort at the glare his employer leveled at him. Mickey knew that if he pushed Pete any further, he would be erased from existence.

"If I may, sir?"

Pete looked at him surprised. "Go on, Agent Smith."

"It's a completely mad idea, but under the circumstances, it's our only way of getting Rose back."

Pete looked like he was considering his words.

"Also, sir, we tried to warn the girls before it started." Smithers added.

_And… you're on your own_. While he was helping Rose, Mickey would do his best to keep Mr. Smithers mostly intact, but his patience had its limits.

So did Pete's.

"Did you also send them each a contract and make them sign our standard confidentiality agreements?" he asked the smaller man in a suspiciously calm voice.

The man in question didn't seem to sense the danger and smiled, thinking that Pete had come round at last. "No sir, I did not think of that."

"You didn't. Think." Nobody could mistake his sarcasm now. "It seems to me, that YOU DON'T DO A WHOLE LOT OF THINKING" Pete roared. "You didn't think to check the coordinates on the cannon BEFORE the test run! You didn't THINK to ask me before you activated something _you have no prayer _of controlling. You didn't consider what would happen if even one of these girls was killed! You risked her life… all of their lives… for WHAT?"

He sighed. When he next spoke, his voice was deathly quiet. "You have one day to make significant progress, otherwise, you have never worked for Torchwood. Dismissed."

Smithers fled, and Pete put his face in his hands. Mickey averted his eyes awkwardly.

"I'll excuse myself," he said, touching Pete's hand.

"Where are you, Rose?" he murmured, striding down the silent corridor.


	7. As I Lay Me

Day 4

Rosie awoke with a rude thump. She looked around. She seemed to be in some sort of tent, flashlight digging into her back. City girl to the bone, Rose profoundly hoped that she wasn't on a camping trip. She pulled the pink sleeping bag up to her shoulders, shivering in the cold night air. No diary; apparently this Rose wasn't the journaling type.

She hastily dressed in the jeans and jumper that she found on the tent's floor, and went outside. A man waited for her in front of a healthy campfire.

"It happened again," he commented quietly.

"What?" Rosie asked, squinting at him through the flames.

"You're someone else again," he elaborated, sounding a bit exasperated. Then, in a kinder tone, "Come towards the fire, you must be freezing."

"I am," she admitted ruefully. She took a tentative step forward, and when he made no overtly threatening moves joined him. He was around forty, leanly muscular and dangerous-looking, an impression that was only reinforced by the gun that he carried at his hip. His expression was guarded, but not unfriendly.

"Are you some sort of agent?" she asked, gesturing to the gun. He wasn't police at any rate. Maybe she was an agent too. Agent Gen. Mickey would have a field day with that one.

"You could say that." he said, looking slightly amused. 'Who are you?"

"Rose Tyler."

"Oh, really? Never would have guessed," he snapped. She flinched, and he tossed another log onto the fire, causing it to spark.

"I'm sorry," he said "just help me know who you are."

"I… I was a gymnast when I was younger," she said, casting about for an answer. He began to interrupt. "I started out on the under-sevens team, but my routine won, so I moved onto the semi-finals and was recruited professionally by a talent scout."

"Good for you," he replied with disinterest. She had to give him more.

"These days, I live in my father's house in London. I know I probably should move out but couldn't leave him after Mum…" she swallowed.

His expression softened slightly. "My Rose's parents died too; she was raised by a foster family. About five years ago, a case took me to London. That's where we met."

"How did you meet?"

The man smiled, and looked up at her for the first time. "You were chasing a pack of vampires… yes, they exist," he sighed, catching her look.

"She was hunting… vampires," Rose's head spun. "But wouldn't that be dangerous?"

"Yes it is, very. It was extremely stupid of her. Brave though," he added grudgingly. "I tried to leave, but she stuck to me like a bug. Eventually, a good many years later, she became a damn good hunter."

There went her burgeoning career with Interpol.

"I believe you have the advantage of me," she said at length, looking at him expectantly.

"Advantage," he grunted. "Look at you. My name's Ben Lancaster."

She ignored that. "So Mr. Lancaster, do you chase… vampires for a living?"

"As a matter of fact I do. I hunt and kill anything supernatural that hunts and kills us. Vampires, ghosts, demons, you name it. In order to fund that chase I scam credit card companies and cheat at poker." His tone was deliberately unhelpful.

Rose decided that it would be safest not to comment. "Oh. Who am— who is she to you?"

"My partner," he replied, and, catching her shocked glance, "Not that kind of partner. She's half my age!" he yelped indignantly.

"I'm sorry, It's just… there are so many different versions of my life. Just yesterday I woke up as an environmental activist taking a kip in front of a bulldozer." She sighed. The bulldozer had been the least of it.

He didn't acknowledge her apology. "We need to break camp."

Five minutes later they were in the truck, and all his equipment, including a bunch of dangerous looking knives and an impressive arsenal of guns and multicolored bullets were stowed safely in a tool-case that he put in the back seat.

"Where are we going?" Rose inquired. Ben was fiddling with the radio, and the silence had become awkward.

"Tennessee," he replied without looking up. "There's been a string of unusual deaths and I need to find… got it!" old rock music swelled "out what it is and kill it."

"Is that it?" Rose was honestly confused.

He ignored her and listened the radio.

Undeterred, Rose continued. "Just a string of mysterious deaths, and you're on a warpath. How do you know they aren't the work of a serial killer?"

He made no answer. Five minutes later, Ben pulled off to the side of the highway, still pretending that she didn't exist. Rose estimated that they were about 20 miles from the campsite.

"What are you doing?" she asked warily.

"Nothing for you to worry about," he answered casually. She would be the judge of that. He popped the hood and exited the truck. Although the hood partially obscured Rose's view, she suspected that he was just fiddling with the engine. Why? Was he waiting for someone?

The highway behind them seemed deserted, but even as she watched, a dark green jaguar rounded the corner and whizzed past. Rose caught a glimpse of a light suit and graying hair. Once the car had passed them, Ben shut the hood and climbed back in.

"What was that about?" Rosie asked.

"He was following us."

"He can't have been! Nobody shadows somebody by speeding in a jag!" she protested.

"How'd you figure?"

"Jags are a bit…conspicuous, aren't they?"

"Exactly. It's so conspicuous that most people would never suspect it."

Rose gave up. "Well, if he was following us, he's lost us now."

Ben smiled grimly "Has he?"

Perhaps she had climbed into the car with a paranoid schizophrenic after all. Ben started driving again, but kept checking the rearview mirror. There was nothing there but the miles of empty road.

At least he had stopped ignoring her. "We'll need to call her brother if we're being chased. I haven't seen Mickey since the last kidnapping case but…"

She choked on the sip of water she had just taken.

"MICKEY! Oh, God where is he? Is he okay?"

"You know him."

"Know him, he's my ex-boyfriend!" She would never be able to look at Mickey the same way again. Ben seemed to be as flummoxed as she was.

"You dated that idiot!"

"He's not an idiot!"

Lancaster rolled his eyes. His childish behavior made her wonder how platonic their partnership really was. Without warning, he pulled the wheel hard to the left. The tires screeched as he performed a risky U-turn and started off in the other direction. When Rose demanded to know what he was doing, he didn't answer. They passed another sports car, this one a red Maserati. She glanced at him, but his expression remained carefully neutral. At last they turned off the highway, and Ben informed her curtly that they had arrived.

They drove through the small town in frosty silence. At last, he parked by a diner and jumped down from the truck. When Rose made to follow, he locked the door.

"No. I can't have you tagging along, there are men out looking for you."

"So I'm just supposed to wait in here, then?" Cause _that _was going to happen.

"Yep."

She took a deep breath and said quietly "Look, I'm sorry that your partner isn't here."

His eyes softened. "It's not that. You're a civilian, and I can't in all good conscience put you in a potentially dangerous situation. She's trained for this. You aren't."

"I'm already in a potentially dangerous situation!"

Ben considered her for a second. "All right. You'd probably attract more unwanted attention this way any way."

Rose gave a sigh of relief, and turned the handle of the newly unlocked truck door.

"But keep in mind that these people have just lost their loved ones, and they aren't going to want to talk. So, promise me that whatever I do, whatever I say, you'll play along."

"Play along," Rosie laughed shakily. "I think I can manage that."

What choice did she have, really?


	8. Interlude: Theory and Practice

2 Years Ago

"Just think, Mickey, the cannon can shield the human body from up to five times the amount of radiation that your old dimension jump managed!"

The man in question drained his pint. "Rose, you heard the Doctor. He said travel between dimensions was impossible, and he doesn't use that word lightly. Even this… cannon thing is purely theoretical. You'll want Dr. Pearson for theory, I'm just a field agent."

"It never hurts to have the capability, Mick," Jake argued, siding with Rose.

"Save your arguments for the supervisors. And anyway, even on paper the cannon is highly unsafe. You'd have to stay in the void for at least 15% longer."

"It doesn't cause as much damage!"

"Look at you, all eco-friendly! You know very well that a few seconds longer and your eyes melt."

"Theoretically," insisted Rose. They were sitting in pub near the council estates that they often frequented. Among its other benefits, the tabloids never followed her there; unable to fathom her preference for a chippy above a four-star restaurant.

Jake cut in. "Pete listens to you, Mickey, and if you just put it forward…"

"…in such a way that it doesn't look like Rose is risking her life to find her ex!" Mickey snapped. Rose was about to argue when a man approached, business suit comically out of place among the dingy tables and boisterous patrons.

"Masters Smith and Simmonds, Ms. Tyler?" the man asked in a clipped tone.

"What is it now?!" groaned Mickey. He hadn't slept in seventy-two hours.

"There's a car waiting for you out front. News just came in from the astronomical quaerere department, they say it's urgent."

"What is it, another asteroid? Have the U.F.S chuck a nuke at it, they like to feel useful!"

The couple at the next table looked over, and a rather large man sitting at the bar turned.

"Mickey, stop." Rose hissed, cutting him off before he caused another international incident. We'll be right over," she assured the agent, and threw down the cheque.


	9. Human

Day 4, Continued

Rosie was at loose ends. They had interrogated the families of the victims, and then Ben had phoned an old friend of his, some "John" that apparently would know what sort of apparition was murdering people and bringing them back to life. Rose strongly suspected the zombie apocalypse, and had said as much. Lancaster, or "that lanky git" as she had privately nicknamed him, had not been amused.

Lanky had checked her into a motel, ordered her pizza, and then left in that ridiculous truck of his, probably to do something dangerous and heroic. Rose spent the first fifteen minutes refining her nickname for him, and the next thirty composing an entry for the diary she had eventually found. That done, she flipped through the channels, finally finding one where _The Golden Compass _was just starting, and immersed herself in Pullman's world. She wouldn't at all mind waking up in his universe, she mused, but what kind of animal would her daemon be? Maybe a wolf? Rosie snorted.

Thinking of wolves, particularly bad ones made her patience finally snap. She turned off the television and left her motel room. Ben was probably off getting killed, who knew where Gen was, she was being followed by special agents Jag and Dusty, and some version of her had probably gotten her arrested and fired in her home universe. What a bloody mess.

Outside, she looked up at the sky. It looked like the one she grew up under, but even that was a lie. A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Turning, she saw Bad Wolf.

Rosie didn't wait for her to approach, she was angry. However, a closer inspection of the woman completely derailed her anger. Bad Wolf looked battered, and her eyes were haunted.

"Hello," Rosie said softly. Her little snit wouldn't help anyone.

"Hi," Bad Wolf answered, her eyes sad, and a little uncertain. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn't have the words.

"Would you like to come in?" Rose asked. "There's no tea, I'm afraid, but I do have some cold pizza."

Bad Wolf laughed, and the tension broke. "I'd love to," she said, shaking her head.

Rosie returned to her hotel room, wondering what the hell she was doing. She held the door open for Rose and then opened the pizza box while the other girl sat on her bed.

"Well I've had an exciting day," Rosie said as she put a couple slices in the microwave. "Woke up in a tent, got interrogated by a ghost-hunter who I may or may not be shagging, ooh—was chased by a bright red sports car and pretended to be a social worker/ psychiatrist in order to investigate a spirit, and checked into a motel. You know, the usual."

Bad Wolf grinned, her tongue poking out of her mouth cheekily. It was strange, seeing herself smile. "You love it," she accused.

"Little bit, yeah." Bad Wolf laughed again. Emboldened, Rose asked "Why are you doing this?" and immediately regretted it. Rose's eyes shut, and for a moment she looked as though she was carved out of marble, but then she just looked tired

"You didn't cause this, did you?" she realized.

"No." Other Rose sighed. "But that doesn't mean it's not my fault."

"Why is this happening to me—us?" she amended hastily.

The microwave dinged. Rosie took the pizza out and handed a piece to Rose, who was still sitting on her bed.

"Oh god— this pizza tastes gorgeous." Rose groaned, finishing off the slice in two bites.

It was Rosie's turn to laugh. "I'll get you another if you like?"

"Ta," said other Rose. Rosie got up to get the pizza. Privately, she figured that Bad Wolf would finish off the box, she looked pretty hungry. "It's a bit weird, watching me serve myself."

Rosie groaned. "You did not just say that."

The two of them dissolved into helpless laughter as the sheer incongruity of the situation caught up with them. Rosie was serving pizza to a trans-dimensional double named Bad Wolf whose gigantic gun was still haunting the corner of the hotel room, like a reminder of the world that had given such a young woman such old eyes. Right now though, Rosie was wondering what it would have been like to have a sister. She got up again.

"They're moving you guys around because they're looking for me."

Rosie momentarily stiffened, then forced herself to continue her movements.

"Are you on the run?" That would explain the two men.

"Sort of, I guess."

"Are you incapable of giving a straight answer?" Rosie snapped. She handed her the second slice.

Rose smiled sadly. "Nah, only about causality, and…well, probably everything."

She took a bite of pizza and began. She told Rosie about her life with the doctor, and how she lost him, and a little about the universe she had been trapped in. Then she said something that made Rose choke on her water.

"What!" Rosie gasped. By then, Bad Wolf had eaten half the pizza and was still stealing glances at the box. She looked as though she hadn't eaten for a while.

"Yep. Blood tests have confirmed it. I am the woman who will never wither and die." Rose's tone was slightly bitter, but she shook it off and continued. "I tried to keep it a secret for as long as I could, and everything was fine until I discovered this… artifact. I talked my father out of using it, so Torchwood tried to kill me. I ran away."

"Sounds like something out of a movie," Rosie commented. Rose raised an eyebrow.

"What! Two lovers separated by circumstances beyond their control, the woman with a dangerous—oomph!" Rose had thrown a pillow at her.

"Shut up!" Rosie tried to stifle her giggles, but to no avail. "No, seriously Rosie, we need to get down to business… oh god!" She started to laugh as well.

CRASH!

"What's that?" All vestiges of mirth left Rose's eyes. She grabbed her backpack.

"Sounds like it came from the parking lot."

"Motel!" Rose reminded her, getting up. "Listen, have you seen or heard anything… odd in the last day or two? Something that doesn't change from one parallel to the other?"

"There was a man, well, two men chasing me earlier… were they from Torchwood?"

"I don't know. What did they look like?"

"Didn't see his face. Just for the sake of clarity, Torchwood is the company owned by your father that hunts aliens?"

Rose winced. "Yep."

Perhaps unicorns existed as well, but Rosie didn't want to ask.

Rose opened the motel door and poked her head out.

"Must have been a stray cat." Rosie said, blinking. Her vision had gone green again.

"Maybe," Rose murmured.

Rosie tried to distract her. "Why didn't you just tell your father? For that matter, while you're jumping universes, why not return to the doctor?"

Rose groaned. "I've tried, believe me. The only reason this happened was that I was trying to find him. I still have to warn him about… and anyway, if I go back to Pete I run the risk of leaving you lot out in the cold."

"Why's that?" Rosie asked.

Bad Wolf didn't seem to hear her. "You started a diary a couple days ago."

"Yeah I did, but how'd you know that?"

Bad Wolf held up her wrist to show what Rosie had taken to be a watch. "I still have some friends in Torchwood."

"It seemed like the thing to do," Rosie said, feeling a little defensive.

"Oh no, it's brilliant idea, well done! It's just not going to work."

"Why is that, then?"

"Too many variables. I'll teach you a better way."

Rosie was about to ask her what her 'better way' was, but just then, the communicator beeped. Bad Wolf read it and swore.

"No, no, it's good news, don't worry. Tomorrow you'll wake up in your own body again," she said, but her expression was grim.

"Then why are you so upset about it?" Rosie asked suspiciously, then she realized. "They're that much closer to finding you."

Bad Wolf's expression tightened, but she nodded. She looked a bit ashamed at being called out. It was that expression, so familiar and yet so strange, that decided her.

"What can we do to help?" Rosie asked firmly. Rose didn't bother to ask who she meant.

"You all can focus on keeping yourselves in the land of the living," Rose replied tartly.

Rosie lost her temper. "So you just expect us to continue being thrown from universe to universe like so many hot potatoes while you go and save the day."

Rose sighed. "Something like that, yeah," she admitted, massaging her temples. Rosie was opening her mouth to argue, but Rose preempted her. "Alright, you win."

"I do?" Rosie asked, and then was embarrassed at her surprise. "I mean, good because if you didn't then I…" her voice trailed off.

Rose studied her. "So that's what it looks like when..." Then, as the other girl began to protest, "Fine, so here's the thing. That isn't your body, which means that the… machine, for lack of a better word, must have created a telepathic link between your minds. You follow?"

"Sort of," hedged Rosie.

Rose looked as if she wanted to roll her eyes, which made Rosie want to smack her. "I think we can exploit it, that is, make it so that you guys can communicate. The doctor… he was telepathic, and he explained to me how it worked once."

"Why would he do that?"

"He thought I wasn't listening," Rose grinned.

Rosie laughed. She used to do that to Mickey when he talked about cars. He wouldn't believe it if she told him, but she hadn't been to the mechanics in almost three years.

"Well then, we'd best get started."


	10. Interlude: Margin of Error

The Doctor, Day 1

_Ping_. "Hmm, that's odd." the Doctor said, running his hands over the TARDIS console.

Donna just glared at him.

"There seems to be a slight disturbance in the flow of artron energy— why are you glaring at me?"

"You told me we were going to a celebration, but you didn't mention that it would involve being spit on by… black manatees all day!"

"They're called Sarcushians Donna, and they were just being polite. Spitting is a great sign on respect on Sarcuschia…" his expression was serious. "What's the matter, don't you want to be polite to the locals?"

"Don't pull that one on me, Spaceman. If you had bothered to mention their 'politeness' I would have ditched my favorite dress and carried a bloody shield!" she shouted. She was the picture of misery, and looking at him with murder in her eyes.

He couldn't help but grin, but then Donna looked as if she was about to smack him. "I'm sorry, so sorry, I will warn you next time _and _I will book you a trip to an intergalactic spa first chance I get and…"

Once he had calmed his irate companion, the doctor checked the TARDIS console again. The pinging had intensified.


	11. Original Intent

Kay, Day 5

_The breath of life_ Jenny whispered, the spirit fading from her eyes. He was lighting the funeral pyre for Koschei, his enemy's voice whispering brokenly _I win_. Rose was trapped by a Dalek at the end of a corridor in the bunker in Utah, holding her mobile to her ear. She opened her mouth, but instead of the words he remembered so well, she screamed. As she screamed, the wall behind her warped and whitened, and then she was clinging to the lever, hold slipping…

The doctor jolted awake, but the screams continued. He jumped out of bed and raced towards the console room, pushing past a wet-haired Donna, who was shrugging on a bathrobe. The TARDIS chimed worriedly in his mind and then, instead of the corridor he was expecting, he tumbled into the console room and saw… Rose.

Her hair was a bit darker perhaps, and she was heavily pregnant, but it was definitely her. He gaped with shock. Donna skidded up behind him and asked, "What the hell is going on?"

When his expression didn't change, Donna decided to take control.

"You're all right, sweetheart, I'm sorry, but you must have ended up here by mistake. Just calm down and we'll get you back…"

"What are you going on about?" the woman stopped screaming to gasp. She concentrated hard for a second, but that didn't seem to help. She still looked completely bewildered.

"Rose," the doctor asked softly. "Don't you remember me?"

Comprehension flared. "I'm sorry, I'm not your Rose," she grimaced slightly as she said it, and her words came out in a pained rush.

They were still looking at her with consternation. Her patience snapped.

"Look, I don't know who you are, or where I am, but it would be GREAT if the two of you stopped staring and HELPED me!"

"Listen, blondie, if you're not his Rose anymore, then WHAT are you DOING here!" shouted Donna, who was tired and confused and bloody sick of riddles. She had watched a girl die yesterday, and her eyes were still red from crying.

The woman opened her mouth to answer, but then seemed to sense something, and screwed up her face again. She closed her eyes and seemed to come to a decision "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm not from here. I'm not who you think I am, I've never met either of you, help me PLEASE?!" Only then did they notice that her ankle was bent in an unnatural angle.

The TARDIS med-bay glowed with the same ghostly light as the console room. Rose was lying on the examination table while the doctor set and healed her broken bone and at her request, checked her pregnancy. Donna leaned against the doorway, watching them.

The strange woman refused to relax. "Is my baby all right?" she asked anxiously.

"He's fine, well, he's a bit over-excited, but who wouldn't be? You have nothing to worry about, which in itself is a bit worrying, really," the doctor mused.

"What! Why?!" she demanded, her eyes widening with panic.

The doctor realized his mistake, "No, no, no your baby is fine, just fine, molto bene."

"Thank goodness," Rose sighed. "Then why are you worried?"

"Because whatever moved you to this universe can generate a force field powerful enough to protect you from the void."

"But isn't that a good thing…wait, so you don't know what's happening?" she sounded disappointed.

"Not a clue," he admitted.

"Well, you're a rubbish villain then. Here I am smack dab in the middle of your evil laboratory, and you aren't even going to tell me why I'm here."

A corner of the Doctor's mouth pulled up. "I'm not an evil scientist."

"I am," she caught his look. "Oh, god no, I'm not evil, I'm just a scientist. Or at least I will be if I get my degree," she chuckled nervously.

"Why are you here?" Donna asked

Rose flashed a nervous smile but didn't answer. The doctor busied himself with turning off the machinery "My husband, he's a proper scientist. We were on a dig in Nubia when it happened."

The doctor groaned. "Oh no, you're not, are you? Please tell me you're not an archaeologist."

"What's wrong with archaeologists?" asked not-the-right-Rose, looking hurt.

"I'm a time traveler. Archaeologists… oh never mind." he said hastily as Donna cleared her throat.

"So tell me, not-evil-just-an-archaeologist-Rose, how did you get here?"

"My god, that's a bit long. Call me Kay, if you must."

"Why Kay?" the doctor asked, bemused.

"One of the other girls calls me that, and I kind of like it."

"So Kay, how did all of this start?" Donna inquired, slightly emphasizing the name.

Rose probed her ankle gently for a second, her face thoughtful. "I… it began for me when I went to Meroe last week. We were having dinner with my old primary school teacher, the one who got me into science and… after the dinner, Henry— my husband had to stay behind to pay the bill, so I decided to show Patricia the festival. We wandered the marketplace for a while, then she got distracted by a fire-eater and we got separated. I didn't realize that I had lost her in the dark until my phone rang. And I heard this crashing noise, or at least what I thought was one, and saw a pale blue light shining from the same direction. I went to investigate."

She gave a rueful smile. "Not my brightest moment. I thought that Patricia had tripped and was using her cell phone… but instead there someone carrying a gigantic gun. I was debating whether or not make a run for it, but then she turned. It was me! She told me that the lines between the dimensions were blurring, and that I should be on my guard. That's it. Nothing else. That's all she said, and then she just disappeared! I thought the wine had gone to my head." Rose's smile became fixed. "A week later I awoke to find myself in the body of a Rose that's a vigilante ghost hunter."

"No." said Donna, floored.

"Oh yes, and it gets better: her partner thought I was a shape-shifter who kidnapped his partner and was impersonating her. I wasn't exactly in a position to disagree, I mean, I thought I'd suffered a miscarriage, and here was this man pointing a gun at me saying I had ten seconds to live!"

"How did you get out of that one?" asked Donna. The doctor was still being uncharacteristically silent.

"I think he felt sorry for me. Anyway, the next day it happened again, and I was a former Olympic gymnast working three jobs. After that, I was an actress, then an activist… you get the idea."

The doctor unfroze "Hold on, that— that's impossible! Or at least very, very highly improbable. The power to make even one such swap would have to be…"

"…ten to the factor of five thousand times the amount of energy a supernova commands, yes."

"Yeah, that's right, but how…?" the Doctor exclaimed. "Oh, that's right, scientist."

"Actually," said Kay, innocently examining her nails, "I read it in your girlfriend's quantum physics textbook."

Both of them looked at her.

"What, I was bored! They certainly weren't going to let me lead any Torchwood operations."

ooo

The trio hastily relocated to the TARDIS library, the Doctor helping Kay limp along. If she was surprised by the fact that her ankle already seemed to be healed, she didn't mention it. Once there, Kay lay on the couch while Donna and the Doctor tore apart the library and interrogated her about the swaps.

"You said the first time you woke up in a different body," the doctor probed. He was shuffling through a book that looked suspiciously like the 60th century edition of the encyclopedia galactica.

"Yes, every day until today, actually," said Kay, forestalling his next question.

"Hang on a tick, you said that 'one of the girls' gave you that nickname. How are you in contact with them?" Donna asked curiously, trying without much success to read the doctor's handwriting. _That's definitely a "T" _she thought.

Kay bit her lip uncomfortably. "One of them started a diary."

"Are all of you the same age?" the Doctor asked, picking up _Inter-dimensional travel theory for Dummies_.

"No, I'm the eldest, nearest we can figure. I'm 27."

The Doctor lowered his book. "That would be due to the distances between the universes, but the initial mind transfusion rules out most physical links. However, by that logic this would have happened three—no two— well, most likely three years ago," he mused, staring off into space. The girls just looked at him. He shook himself, "Time zones, seasons, stuff like that, do they affect the change?"

The woman just shook her head. She was studying him with an intense expression that made him feel uncomfortable. It wasn't an expression Rose usually directed at him, but he recognized it nonetheless.

The Doctor chucked a copy of Heisenberg's string theory, muttering something about the TARDIS mixing up the humor and education sections again. "It's no surprise that this thing is mostly temporally transient, but then why would all the changes happen during the night… oh I'm thick, thickety thick thick you were in Torchwood! What are they up to this time?"

"I really don't know. They treated me respectfully enough, but seemed to think that if they gave me any extraneous information I would destroy the earth with my mad science skills."

"Wait a minute, if the changes happen at night, why don't you just wait up then?" Donna interjected, struggling with a large tome.

"Tried that, doesn't work."

"Well it wouldn't, would it; it's not hard for a substance that powerful to induce an artificial REM state…"

"… and a relaxant would make sense, given the state of my vitals earlier." Rose noted.

They worked in silence for a while, the Doctor occasionally posing a question he hadn't thought of earlier. Kay seemed grateful for the chance to help figure out what was going on, but as time passed, a thoughtful and slightly melancholy expression appeared on her face.

"How come you're here, but she's still there?" Rose asked suddenly, her eyes boring holes in the back of his head

The doctor lowered the book he was holding. "What do you mean?" he asked flatly.

"Well, if Torchwood already has two ways of facilitating dimensional travel, why can't someone with all of time and space at his command do the same?"

"Torchwood, if it is Torchwood, and it probably is come to think of it, is ripping holes in the fabric of space and time, thereby endangering at least seven universes, and you're wondering why I'm not eager to join in the fun," he stated, voice rising.

"I'm wondering why you haven't at least _tried _to get her back!"

Donna walked in while they were still glaring at each other, and brought them something to eat. After the impromptu meal, Kay helped the doctor spot the irregularities in her medical scans. By tacit agreement, they didn't bring up their earlier conversation. However, despite their hard work, at the end of the day, they still knew nothing. The game of musical universes continued, but not even the Doctor knew the rules.


	12. Interlude: All That Is

11 Months Previously

Rose gave Jake a quick smile as she prepared to jump. He looked a bit green, and the technicians behind him were muttering with a strange mixture of worry and resentment.

She couldn't say that she really understood their attitude. Everyone in the room knew that the stars were going out. Hell, everyone with a telescope would know within the year if the pace current pace was consistent. Rose remembered the astronomy class that she had half-heartedly signed up for in secondary school. The students had never actually got to look at the sky, they had just followed the teacher's pointer as it jumped around on a dirty grey projector screen. Sirius, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Orion, the Pleiades—

She had failed the exam.

In light of that, it had been somewhat disconcerting to find herself in the same room with professors, doctors, specialists, and leaders of the free world. Luckily, her suggestion had appealed to them collectively, even if it was only accepted as a contingency. She had been in the right place at the right time, and she knew that the doctor could fix this if she could just find him.

The fact that she had wanted to beforehand was neither here nor there.

Rose wasn't too worried about the op today, or so she told herself. After all, it wasn't her first time using the dimension cannon. The technicians had even achieved a form of accuracy as far as temporal shifts went, which meant that little hiccups such as her unplanned trip to a monastery, (the monks had nearly burned her as a witch) or her run-in with the alternate version of a certain captain from the future (he had tried to kill her) were less likely to happen.

At last, the techies nodded. They were ready. Rose took a deep breath. Today would be her first time in the void. She aimed, and fired.

There was a howling blackness. She screamed, but there was no sound. Her very essence seemed to dissemble and scatter into billions of threads woven gently into the fabric of the universe. She had no way of knowing how long that lasted, perhaps a few millennia, more likely no more than a few seconds.

Then there was a spark. Soon, a golden light blazed and she could hear a woman singing. She didn't know who she was, why she was; the golden song was everything. A memory hit.

_Can I just say, traveling with you, I love it," she smiled, hugging the doctor's arm. The fabric of his coat was new then, but eventually wrinkles set because they were like that so often._

_ "Me too," he grinned down at her, brown eyes crinkling._

Rose tumbled out onto soft turf and gasped for breath. Rolling onto her belly, she checked her instruments. She was in the wrong universe. She rested her head for a second, sniffed, and began to laugh. Apple grass. 

**Hi! I just want to say thank y'all for reading. Review if you enjoy it/ have constructive criticism, or I don't know. Either? Both? Umm… the next chapter will be posted on Thursday because this Friday is a holiday.**


	13. When the Cat's Away

Marilyn, Day 5

Rose was having breakfast when she fell off the deep end.

The day had started out innocently enough, with an alarm that rang at 6:30 precisely, and she had awoken in a strange room that was neither her flat in Central London nor the cheery and embarrassingly pink room that she had grown up in. Stumbling to the mirror, she saw that she was in her own body again. Her surprise at that fact probably already qualified her for the loony bin, later events notwithstanding.

After dressing in the semi-professional clothes the person she had replaced most likely only used for job interviews, Marilyn walked down the stairs. On her way to the kitchen, she caught a glimpse of a case full of old gymnastics trophies and a whole row of family pictures. She stopped for a second in front of the photo of a teenaged Rose and child Tony grinning hugely in front of a primary school, and was forced to battle an irrational pang of envy. She was an only child.

Her discomfort increased drastically at the sight of her father making breakfast. Intellectually, she knew that her chances of avoiding him were slim, but she still had to fight the urge to flee. He had abandoned her— no, that wasn't fair, this man obviously had not—

Her face must have been a study, but his reaction to her was much more dramatic.

Cereal sprayed as he fumbled the box and finally brought it to rest on the counter.

"Wha—when did you dye your hair, love?" he exclaimed, sheepishly cleaning up the mess.

"I've been dyeing it since I was twelve," she laughed, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"You cut it too," he continued, looking confused.

"I dunno, I just felt like a change," Marilyn replied breezily.

A beat. "You look lovely sweetheart. What a nice surprise! So who's the gentleman who warrants the new haircut and posh clothes?"

He was over his surprise and back in cool parent mode. Marilyn had assured him that she wasn't seeing anyone, and had been getting her tea when she finally went bonkers.

_Hello _whispered a voice in her mind that definitely wasn't her own. She jumped violently, almost slopping her tea down her front.

"All right, Rose?"

"I'm fine, just a bit tired. Didn't sleep well."

There was a pause where he might have asked why, demanded she get to bed earlier, or offered to fix the window in her room that didn't close all the way. Instead, he only sighed.

"Me neither, sweetheart," he said quietly.

She didn't quite know how to respond to that. _"Wait, can you actually hear me?_" the voice asked, sounding a bit anxious. Weirdly, she could discern a faint echo. _Yes,_ she thought back, pushing her words at the voice, "_who are you?" _The intruder felt relieved. _"You're late for work."_

"I—I have to leave now, sorry Dad. I'm going to be late."

He looked at his watch, and an eyebrow shot up. He offered her a ride, which Marilyn accepted gratefully, as she didn't know where her job was. Or what it was, for that matter.

As they walked towards to car, the presence returned _Mum died when I was fourteen, so please don't mention her. I'm also a former gymnast… _'I noticed' Marilyn muttered. _…and please don't mention my brother either. Which one are you?_

_ The actress_ she thought back, reeling. Nothing had prepared her for this eventuality. The presence swelled and split. "_I'm going mad, I'm going mad, I'm going mad!" _a third voice moaned just as her father pulled up in front of a diner.

_You're a waitress here _the first voice informed her helpfully. She thanked her dad again exited the car. _Practicing for my Oscar's speech, _she thought wryly. A new voice with a slight American accent said "_Oscars? What are Oscars… what's going on?"_

Serving tables was harder than she thought it would be, thanks to her sudden bout of schizophrenia. In the middle of the morning rush, a burst of agony nearly caused her to drop her tray and a fourth voice joined the cacophony. The new voice seemed to be running through all the curses English, Spanish, Latin and some unidentified language possessed.

_What the hell is this?! And who is that?! _shrieked the woman. An inverted image of a concerned looking man in his late thirties appeared. She must be laying on her side. _That's the doctor. Are you Kay? _asked the first voice. _"Who's Kay… Kay? Really?"_

'_Do I really have to hear all this?'_ the third voice complained. Marilyn heartily agreed. _ Oh, _said the first voice, sounding sheepish. _Sorry. _Blessed silence.

_Marilyn_, she smiled, clearing and setting a table. As in Marilyn Monroe? She had been compared to worse in her day, both by the girls in her middle school and the tabloids. She could only hope she was a better actress than server. In the first thirty minutes, she messed up seven orders and spilled countless drinks on customers, until the hostess kindly switched jobs with her.

"Roy's going to surprise me for our anniversary next week," she whispered in passing.

_Her husband _the first voice supplied. "That's really great, Delia, and thanks."

A muted rumble resounded from the kitchen; the General was not pleased.

The hostess booth held even more terrors; Marilyn had never seen a computer before. Despite her three (four?) willing teachers, by the end of the hour she was reduced to a pad and pencil. Only her vast experience with party planning saved her.

The boy at the espresso bar kept staring at her. Apparently her father wasn't the only person surprised by her 'new look.' Normally she would take his outright staring as a complement, but he looked more worried than appreciative. Marilyn decided to avoid him.

As luck would have it, the environmental activist was the one filling her shoes for the day. Well, at least one of them was having fun, Rose thought wryly. She would have to do damage control when she got back. With this in mind, she filled out a leave of absence form for Rosie.

Her job at the video store was easier, if a bit tedious. Things seemed to be settling down internally as well. None of the voices except Rosie and occasionally Ana interrupted her untilKay asked for their ages.

_25 _Marilyn thought back, a bit ruefully. How had that happened? She was still sorting through the return slips when the friendly blond who was obviously her manager approached.

"You changed your hair," she said, throwing up her arms in mock horror. "Is the world ending?" _Sally_ supplied Rosie. _She knows me really well so tread carefully_. _And _don't_ call me Rosie. _"Oh, god, that came out a bit rude. It looks fantastic."

"Thanks," Marilyn replied, examining her hair as if she wasn't used to it herself.

"You know what, I like your new look. I'm not an expert or anything but you seem to be moving on with your life and it's… it's nice to watch."

Marilyn felt like she was reading from a script that was missing a page. _What is she talking about?" _she asked a bit querulously. Perhaps she wasn't the only one going through a bad breakup. _Kate will understand if you call in sick _Rosie thought abruptly, and left.

"Why don't you let me take you out to lunch? I know you haven't had breakfast."

"Well actually, I was going to…"

"That's a great idea, I love Italian." Sally jerked her head at the other man, who Marilyn had taken for her boyfriend, widening her eyes obviously. "You'll keep shop, won't you Larry?"

She dragged Marilyn out the door, to the loud protests of her partner. Marilyn let her, lips quirking upward. Someone was in the doghouse.

"That was awkward. Sorry I dragged you into this, Rose."

"I don't mind." She really didn't. It was nice to be reminded that the world still turned.

"He can keep the shop while we're gone. We'll call it a girl's night… well day, if you want to be strictly accurate."

"How 'bout afternoon?" Marilyn offered with mock seriousness.

"Yes, that." Sally smiled.

"What happened?" Marilyn asked.

"God knows it's nothing…it's just that Larry, my god he can be such…" she managed to choke out, before collapsing in helpless laughter.

The night before, her boyfriend had tried to cook her a romantic dinner at her flat, with flowers, candles, classical music— the works. For the final touch, he had decided to use some of the fine china that her Mum had given her when she moved out, which Sally usually kept in a box on top of the fridge. In order to get to it, he had to use her step stool which was wobbly at the best of times. He had been reaching for a rose patterned plate when her cat butted its head against the stool, demanded to be fed. He had lost his balance and hit his head on the corner of a pan, dousing himself with lukewarm bright red pasta sauce and breaking half the china in the process.

"My kitchen looked like it had been through the apocalypse, and I was about ready to call 999 before the big lump decided to explain things, and then I just couldn't stop laughing. The big lump got so offended, but come on, who do you think ended up cleaning that … Rose?"

Marilyn was looking at something behind them.

"There's a man following us. Keep walking."

Sally's eyes widened. "You're sure?"

"Yes— no, don't look back! Pretend that you haven't noticed him."

There was a man in a business suit about a half a block behind them, striding along, offering a friendly smile to any pedestrian he bumped into. It was hard to say what had peaked Rose's suspicion, but, sure enough, when they changed direction he did too.

Marilyn smiled brightly at Sally. "You were saying?" she asked, knowing that the man was well within earshot.

"Well… um… He had to change his entire outfit, included his briefs…"

"Really? I would have though him a boxers sort of guy."

Sally smiled queasily, looking at the man out of the corner of her eye. His face was still hidden.

"Anyway, all I had that would fit him was my old day-camp counselor T-shirt and a pair of sweats. To make things even worse, my Mum called and announced that she was going to drop by to give the spare key to her house, because she was going on vacation and needed a…" the light turned green "house sitter."

The man at the newsstands looked up, and Rose caught a glimpse of bright blue eyes, brown hair, and a slight smile before Sally pulled her across the street. He didn't look dangerous exactly, just familiar, but he was following them without making any effort to catch up.

"Let's lose him," Sally huffed, evidently agreeing with her.

"The tube," Marilyn decided, pulling her down the nearest stairway. She hoped that it wasn't too different from the London Underground in her world. It wasn't. The noise was tinnier, but the sheer volume of people hadn't changed. Today, it was smothering. She swiped the oyster card the wrong direction at the gate, and silently cursed the advanced technology.

Once through, they headed towards the gift shop, and although Marilyn could no longer see her pursuer, she still felt his presence. Without warning, her conscience split. She was talking to a confused Sally, but she was also hovering a little above the crowd. She scanned it quickly.

"_The one you saw earlier was Dusty I think. He has a partner."_ Rosie informed her.

"_Dusty? Seriously? Is that the best you could come up with?!"_

_ "What would you call him?"_

_ "I'm not sure you want the answer to that."_

_That man, third to the left _the activist interrupted, impatient.

She turned, and saw gray-haired man in a business suit sorting through the cheap plastic key-chains. Their reflection could be seen on the door to the cold drink refrigerator in front of him. If the other man didn't look threatening, this man made up for it in spades. Marilyn cursed in Latin.

"This way," she hissed, yanking Sally through the exit, not stopping to see whether he followed. They ran up to the ticket booth, and Rose breathlessly demanded tickets to the first place she could think of— Kensington.

_I was followed the day before yesterday as well. It was the same two men_ confirmed Gen.

_And you didn't mention this, why?!_

_I was a bit busy adjusting to my new multiple personality disorder!_

They boarded the next train, and Marilyn finally came back to herself. She blinked uncomfortably in the fluorescent lights, but they got off two stops early at Sally's insistence.

"I promised you lunch and I know a great Italian place just off Whitechapel."

After lunch, Marilyn apologized to Sally and requested the weekend off. Her friend didn't object.

ooo

Lying awake that night after prayers, listening to the other girls talk about their respective days but scarcely joining in, Marilyn was surprised by a question. _'Practicing for the Oscars' was a phrase that my first agent thought up. He told me that as an aspiring actress, it was a good policy to thank everyone. I had to thank people for auditions, thank directors for their corrections, and even thank the journalists who wrote rude articles about me. He said that I should look at it as 'practicing for the Oscars.' _

The other girls were silent. _What happened to him?_ Kay asked finally. _Mum fired him when he suggested that I audition for the part of Dolores Hayes in Lolita. _Without waiting for a response, Marilyn turned over and went to sleep.

**RL got in the way so here I am, posting on a national holiday. Woo Hoo! Fireworks! And I'm sure patriotism is thrown in somewhere. Seriously though, Happy Independence Day! :)**


	14. Interlude: All That Was

Doctor River Song was suiting up to exit the spaceship. Although this mission was fairly standard, her thoughts drifted to the last time she'd seen Rose. Rose had briefly kissed her goodbye. It was completely platonic, but a surprise nonetheless. _For luck_ the other woman had said, a cloud passing over her face. Then it was gone and she had smiled, hugged River, and left.

"Thinking about the mission, Professor Song?" Anita asked, breaking into her thoughts.

"Yes," the older woman lied. The sonic screwdriver felt heavy in her pocket. "I just feel…"

"Me too, but we'll be fine. We'll go in, solve the mystery, get out, and toast that bastard Lux on my tab." Anita promised.

River wondered whether the Doctor knew as much about her future as Rose did. Probably. He always complained that they met out of order, but she was inclined to disagree. So much of her life was set in stone. River liked to think that the sculpture meant something.

Having said her piece, Anita busied herself in making sure her coms unit was attached.

"Uh, uh, excuse me," interrupted Evangelista timidly. They turned towards her.

"What is it Miss Evangelista?" River asked tolerantly.

"I think I put my helmet on backwards."


	15. Will you walk into my Parlor?

Gen, Day 6

"Books!" exclaimed the Doctor, bounding out the TARDIS with Donna in tow. "People never really stop loving… where's Gen got to?"

Although a few weeks had passed since he'd seen Kay, he had not been surprised to find Hunter Rose aboard his TARDIS. As she wasn't pregnant, and he needed to keep an eye on her anyway, instead of changing his plans for the day he simply invited her along.

"Here," said Gen, poking her head around the TARDIS door, and the Doctor continued. She hid a smile at the Doctor's insistence that the printed word had survived because of its smell.

"The Library," he continued, "so big it doesn't need a name, just a great big The."

"Like 'the doctor'" Gen asked mischievously. The doctor looked at her as if she had dribbled on herself.

"It's like a city!" Donna enthused, distracting him. As the two of them talked, Gen lagged a little behind, impressed despite herself by the gigantic bookshelves and the cathedral-sized rooms. Her partner would've loved it here, although he would staunchly deny it. One time, she had caught him reading an Agatha Christie novel for "research."

As the Doctor continued his rambling, the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle. As beautiful as the place was, there was definitely something off about it.

Realizing that the Doctor and Donna had outdistanced her, Gen ran to catch up. She only half-listened to them bicker like siblings. She was too busy trying to reach Rose.

It appeared that the one service telepathy did not offer was an answering machine.

"Isn't traveling with you, one big spoiler?" Donna was asking.

"I… try to keep you away from major plot developments," the doctor said, frowning.

All at once, she realized what was wrong with the place. "Doctor, if this is the largest library in the universe, then where is everybody?"

"That's what I was about to… never mind," he added hastily as Gen raised an eyebrow.

He ran to the nearest computer. Rose and Donna and Donna craned for a look over either shoulder as he verified that she was right.

"Maybe it's a Sunday," Donna suggested.

"Nah, I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring," he said absently.

Donna made other suggestions, all of which he shot down. When she asked him why they were there, he ignored her. On the screen, they saw that while they were the only humanoids…

"There are a million million other life forms. It gives up after that," he said. "A million million life forms, and silence in the library."

"But there's no one here," replied Donna nervously. "There's just books."

"Maybe its sensing spirits," Gen suggested. "Perhaps… wait! Maybe there's presence of some kind that traps the souls of the readers in these books?"

Donna shuddered, and took a step back from the bookshelves, but the doctor remained unimpressed.

"That's plausible I suppose, but a bit dramatic and over-complicated. You could learn a lot from a fellow named Occam, lovely chap, if a bit wordy. I should introduce the two of you."

As Gen struggled with the irony of the Doctor calling someone else "wordy," a voice from another room in the library distracted them.

The doctor had to stop Gen from physically attacking the droid before it gave its warning.

"Count the shadows," repeated Gen, rubbing her arm. She rounded on the doctor "And what do you mean, stay out of the shadows, there are shadows everywhere!"

They were walking down a corridor with bookshelves that seemed as high as skyscrapers on either side. The doctor just sighed.

"So," added Donna suspiciously, "we weren't just in the neighborhood."

"Yeah, I kind of, um, lied a bit," the Doctor admitted. He held up a leather pad. "I got a message on the psychic paper. What do you think, cry for help?"

"Cry for help, with a kiss," Donna teased, making a face.

"Who's it from," Gen asked. Hshk, hshk, hshk went a noise in the background.

He looked slightly defensive. "I don't know." The noise continued.

Donna scowled. "If you don't know, why did we come here, why do you always…"

"Doctor," Gen interrupted her, urgently pointing at the lights. They were going out one by one, and the shadows were getting darker.

"Run!" shouted the Doctor, and they did. At the end of the row, a large wooden door blocked them.

"It's locked, why is it locked?" Donna asked frantically.

"Stand back," Gen warned, pulling out her gun and pointing it at the lock.

"Put that away. No guns!"

"Why, I'm trying to help!"

"Just let her do it, Doctor, unless you have any better ideas!"

"Yes, actually I do just let me…"

"Oh, get out of the way!"

ooo

Once Donna had kicked open the doors, the Doctor disturbed a living security camera, and Gen figured out that they were in the gift shop, the trio ran into a figurative brick wall.

"Others," said Donna, shaken. "What does it mean, 'others'?"

The shop had a large dome to let in the sunlight. Donna walked towards another slab of marble, and repeated her question, but instead found out that the face had been donated.

"It's all right really." the doctor tried to soothe Donna. "In the 51st century it's basically like donating a park bench,"

Gotcha. _Rosie_, Gen called. _The doctor's on a library planet during the 51st century._ Rosie promised to relay the message. She started to concentrate on her best memory to help the trace.

"Speaking of," said the Doctor, who was looking at her again. He held out a hand. "Gun."

"Oh, come on, we are in a library chock full of dead people and you want me to give you my only weapon! Ben would have my head if I did that."

"Well Ben," he said, looking down at her firmly, "doesn't have to know."

Donna wasn't listening. "It's donated a face!" she repeated, her voice rising. She took a step back, and nearly fell into a new shadow. The Doctor caught her around the waist to stop her.

"Oi, hands!" the redhead snapped, smacking him indignantly.

"Shadow," he replied. Rose aimed, but the doctor tried to wrestle the gun from her grip.

"Yeah, what about it?" Donna asked as they struggled. Gen eventually gave up.

The doctor looked from the high dome to the floor. "There's nothing casting it."

He looked a little pale, and suggested that they get back to the TARDIS. Gen was trying to figure out how to dissuade him, when the door opened in a burst of white light. Rose at last! That was quick. Rose in… an astronaut suit? No wait, not Rose, some other woman. Damn.

"Hello, sweetie," said the woman leading the group of astronauts. She had a lovely face framed by dark blonde hair, and an enigmatic smile that she was aiming at Gen, weirdly enough.

As the doctor inelegantly tried to persuade them to leave, the woman ignored him and popped her helmet. The rest of the group followed suit. There were five other people, a perky and sarcastic black woman, clueless looking brunette, a business man, and two others.

"You came through the North door, yeah, how was that, much damage?" River asked familiarly. The doctor told her to leave, but she ignored him. Oh, I like her, Gen thought.

"Expedition! Oh, you're not are you? Tell me you aren't archaeologists."

"Got a problem with archaeologists?"

"I'm a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists."

"Better than tourists," Rose whispered to the Doctor, who huffed in response.

_Oh Kay_, she thought in a singsong voice, and Kay was suitably offended. Gen exchanged an amused glance with River, whom she felt an odd kinship with. The doctor really thought that he was the only smart person in the room.

They wanted her to sign a contract, which was not going to happen. The doctor seemed to agree, and the middle aged man sputtered as all three unauthorized humanoids tore them up in tandem. When it became clear that no one was leaving, the doctor decided to explain.

"Almost every single species has an irrational fear of the dark. But it's not irrational, it's Vashta Nerada."

"What's Vashta Nerada?" Donna asked.

"It's what's in the dark," the doctor said, aiming his flashlight higher. "It's what always in the dark."

It had been dark when Ben had danced with her on her 21st birthday, she remembered.

The doctor jumped into motion, ordering them to turn on all the lights they could find. River backed him up, ignoring her employer.

"Anita, unpin the lights, other Dave, make sure the door's secure, and then help Anita, Mr. Lux, put on your helmet, Proper Dave, find a terminal, I want you to access the library database, see what you can find out about what happened here a hundred years ago. Pretty boy, Sunshine, you two are with me." She was bending to put down her helmet as she finished.

Gen followed her as Lux asked why he still had to wear his helmet if no one else was.

"I don't fancy you," River grinned. He huffed and began to take it off.

"Probably I can help you," said the Doctor, walking over to Proper Dave. Donna looked at him meaningfully. He stared blankly back, then, "Oh, I'm pretty boy,"

"Yes," Donna snapped, exasperated. "Oh, that came out a bit quick."

They both shrugged.

"Pretty!" he squeaked indignantly, but followed anyway.

Gen was feeling wrong-footed. It usually took her and Ben much longer to get people to cooperate, and as much as she respected Professor Song, she didn't quite trust her.

"Thanks," said River, briefly looking from her to Doctor.

"For what?" Gen asked.

"The usual, coming when I called."

"Oh, that was you?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"You two are doing a very good job of pretending you don't know me, and I'm assuming there's reason."

"Yeah, a fairly good one actually," said the doctor, then "Ow!" as Rose kicked him. River smiled and sat on the edge of a nearby desk, a computer monitor peeking from behind her.

"Okay, so let's do diaries then, where are we this time?" She took out a TARDIS patterned journal. "Going by that one's face, I'd say it's early days for you…"

"River," Gen interrupted softly. The woman looked up. "I'm not your Rose."

River looked up. "Oh," she replied softly. She turned to the doctor. "Your eyes," she said, cupping his face in an intimate gesture. "You're younger than I've ever seen you." She searched his face, but whatever she was looking for, she didn't seem to find it.

"You've seen us before then," the Doctor said slowly. In the background, Donna shifted uncomfortably. Rose largely ignored the proceedings, busy conjuring the feel of Ben's rough hand in hers, when he had pulled her onto the dance floor.

River shifted her gaze to include all of them. "Neither of you… know who I am."

The Doctor nodded, and the woman looked heartbroken. Her eyes flickered towards Rose again, and she opened her mouth… An alarm rang.

Proper Dave had tried to bypass the security protocols. The doctor pushed him out of the way and began to type as the ringing continued. Everybody leaned around him, and he typed furiously until a little girl appeared on the screen.

"Hello," said the Doctor.

"Hello," said the little girl breathlessly. "Are you in my television?"

At first she seemed curious, but as the conversation continued she became uncomfortable.

"I know you, you were in my library!"

"Your library," he repeated, confused. Gen narrowed her eyes. There was something about her but…

_Ben twirled her back towards him, his eyes full of silent longing,_

"My library's never been on television before, what have you done?"

The transmission stopped. River and the others pestered the Doctor about what happened as he typed frantically but to no avail. At last he gave up, and ordered them to keep the lights on for the time being. River backed him up, face giving away nothing of their former conversation.

Gen felt something grab at her mind as if it was a lifeline. It was working! She hastily returned to the memory, her mind conjuring up the feel of Ben's hand on her waist.

She was interrupted when books began to fly everywhere.

"What's that," the Doctor said, looking up from the computer index. He ducked as a particularly large tome flew past his head. Sheltering her face from the onslaught, Rose joined him. The screen of the computer index read Cal, Access denied in big red letters.

"Cal, who's Cal," the Doctor muttered. Lux's pretty assistant began to whimper.

"Maybe it's an acronym for the name of the computer." Rose suggested. "Mickey's company names their computers like that, sometimes."

"Maybe," he said, shooting her a look of startled approval.

Donna approached Miss Evangelista and began talking to her in a friendly voice. Gen missed their conversation because she was focusing on the Doctor. The books began to fly around again.

"That little girls must be the one causing this," River realized, hearing them.

"But who is the little girl," asked the Doctor, "What's she got to do with this place?"_ Then Ben caught her, whirled her around and dipped her. Her laugh was lost in the noise of the crowd, but he gave her a quick grin._

The books stopped flying, and the Doctor asked Lux how the computer mainframe worked. Lux refused to tell them, despite the Doctor's obvious anger.

"There was a single message from the library. It said the lights were going out, and then the computer sealed off the planet…" River interrupted her employer impatiently.

Miss Evangelista was backing away from the group. Quietly, she made to follow, but the Doctor grabbed her arm to keep her there. When she tried to explain, he shushed her impatiently.

"…taken three generations of my family just to decode the seals." Lux was saying.

"Umm, 'scuse me" said Miss Evangelista, but they ignored her. Horrified, Gen saw the passageway that had opened behind her, a dark patch among the bookshelves. She signaled Donna frantically, but she was on the Doctor's other side, and too absorbed in the story. Mr. Lux protested their involvement yet again, and River defended them. Why did she keep doing that?

The doctor looked slightly flummoxed, and Donna had her hands on her hips. Gen benefitted from their distraction to make her way towards Miss Evangelista.

"Umm, this might be important, actually." the girl tried, one more time. When Mr. Lux snapped at her, Evangelista huffed and slipped into the dark corridor. Cursing inwardly, Gen tried to call their attention to it, but was shushed again.

"4022 people saved. No survivors," the Doctor read from the device that River handed him, apparently not noticing Rose's absence. Donna moved in to get a better look.

"That's as many people as were in the library when the planet was sealed," River was saying, as Rose stepped through the archway.

At first she couldn't see Miss Evangelista, but then she saw the flicker of a ponytail turning left. Avoiding the shadows, she followed Miss Evangelista through the narrow corridors until she found herself in a large reading room. Gen didn't like it there, the gentle green reading lamps and eerie silence reminded her of the calm before a storm.

"You really shouldn't wander off."

Evangelista whirled. "Oh, you scared me! I just thought…"

"To see if you could help, I know. Let's go back, Evangelista." Gen made her voice gentle. The other girl was quivering.

"I— I was just—" The lights started to shut off.

"Run!" hissed Rose, whipping out her mini-flashlight and aiming it at the shadows. The darkness threatened to engulf her, and Miss Evangelista backed to the chair in the center of the room. Rose lunged for the girl, but a shadow lay between them, and her flashlight was flickering. She rolled under a chair, pulling down a fancy tablecloth and _Ben was pulling her closer, and her breath quickened. He had smiled at her then, an intimate smile that she had ached for ever since. He pressed his lips to her temple, whispering "Happy Birthday, Agent."_


	16. Interlude: All That Ever Will Be

Bad Wolf was setting coordinates in to the dimension cannon. The psychic whisper from the edge of her consciousness was just strong enough for her to locate the correct universe. _Rosie _she sighed inwardly. She had never agreed to let the other girls help her, but it seemed that they had taken matters into their own hands.

She was in a warehouse out on a waterfront in a universe where she didn't exist. Her bed, supplies, and weapons were safely hidden up on the loft, where a partially rotten staircase would prevent someone from finding her if anyone decided to inspect it. It was a cold, dank place, but the curses of the dockworkers and the waves lapping against the pier made her feel less alone.

_"You're not alone." A voice reminded her._

Rose smiled. _"And that's not the least bit scary."_

_ "Scary? Out of the two of us, who a) can appear out of thin air and b) has a gun?"_

Rose laughed, then sobered. _"Listen, I can't have you risking your life…"_

_ "We're screwed anyway. We may as well help you."_

_ "Which one said that" _Rose asked, making no effort to hide her amusement.

"_How do you know it wasn't me?"_

_ "Because you're Rosie."_ Her friend was incapable of such cynicism.

_ "I'm also Rose, you know." _

Rose laughed, but a burst of pain and fear through the link cut her off. She sobered. As much as they downplayed it, the connection strained the limits of their very sanity.

_"They're in a library during the 51__st__ century. Don't go, it's too dangerous…"_

"It's always dangerous with the doctor,"Rose argued aloud. Her life was danger, and if she never found him, it would never be anything else. She never had felt safer than she had when she was with him. Rose took a deep breath, and plunged.


	17. We're all Mad Here

Day 6, continued

A scream and a horrible bone-sucking noise made the team look up from their work.

"Where's Rose!" the Doctor demanded. His keen eyes spotted the passageway instantly. He raced down it, the others trailing after him. The Doctor charged into the reading room, and found it well lit and empty except for the skeleton in its center.

"Careful… everyone, stay in the light!" he commanded.

"I don't see why you keep saying that…" Other Dave started.

"Oh thank God!" cried Gen, appearing out of nowhere and throwing herself into his arms. She was shaking.

"Rose, what is it, what happened?" he asked. Why didn't she ever listen!

"I followed Miss Evangelista through the doorway she found…" her voice dwindled as she saw the skeleton in the chair. She pushed away from him just as River pulled the com unit out from behind the spacesuit. Her back straightened. "That must be her."

River and the rest were shocked, grieved, and terrified. When the data ghost started asking for Donna, the Doctor had to gently prompt her to talk to it. Miss Evangelista's brainwaves looped, faded, and she was gone. He and Gen exchanged a grim look.

"That was— that was horrible," Donna said, voice shaking.

"It's just a freak of technology," River said dismissively, then her expression hardened. "But whatever did this to her— whatever killed her, I'd like to have a word with that."

"I'll introduce you," promised the Doctor. His expression was unfathomable. He strode off, catching hold of Gen's hand to make sure she didn't wander off again.

He requested a packed lunch, which River gave him, although she still refused to let him read the diary. He asked her who she was again, but she didn't answer.

"Right you lot," he said, taking a deep breath "let's go meet the Vashta Nerada."

The doctor sonicked the shadows under the desks, and Rose knelt beside him, holding the lunch-box. River watched them with a smile.

"You travel with them, don't you," River stated, looking at Donna, "The Doctor and Rose, you travel with them."

Said alien was curtly ordering Proper Dave away from the table.

"Not Gen, just the Doctor. What of it?" she answered with a touch of attitude. Then, in a softer tone she added, "You know them, don't you?"

"Can't remember a time before I did. They've been around my whole life."

"I'm sorry, what?" River wasn't making sense.

"I sent them a message, but it went wrong. They don't know me." Her smile was brittle. "Looking at them is like looking at an old photograph of your parents. You recognize them, but they're not quite finished yet. And you aren't there— their eyes haven't seen you."

"What are you talking about? Are you just talking rubbish? You can't know them!"

"Donna," the Doctor interrupted. "Quiet, I'm working."

He felt rather than saw Gen shoot them an apologetic glance, then turn back to him. She pointed out a dark patch that he hadn't tried yet, and much to his annoyance, she was right.

He gathered the others around.

"That's not darkness down those tunnels. And this—is not a shadow. It's a swarm."

Rose handed him the lunch box.

"A man-eating swarm."

Out of the corner of his eye, the doctor saw her step back to join Donna.

"Vashta Nerada. Literally the shadows that melt the flesh," he continued. The chicken bone clattered to floor. "They're on almost every planet, just not in these numbers."

Gen interrupted to ask how they could beat them. The Doctor's assertion that they couldn't did not sit well with the group. Most of them didn't want to flee with their tails between their legs; the argument continued until the Doctor noticed something off about Proper Dave.

"Don't cross his shadow!" he shouted at Anita. He had two, and the doctor had no idea how to help him. He thought quickly as he spewed some nonsense about astronaut suits. He had to get the girls out, and… wait, River was helping him… she had a sonic screwdriver! His sonic, specifically. Oh, he really didn't have time!

"With me, come on," the Doctor cried, grabbing both Rose and Donna and practically dragged them to the shop, ignoring Donna's confused questions.

"No talking, just moving, stand in the middle, it's a teleport, can't send the others, the TARDIS won't recognize them, it's not safe," he rattled off, not giving them a chance to argue.

They tried anyway, but he didn't listen. If he could just get them to stand… right there.

"Donna, just let me explain…" he flipped the lever. Rose was still there.

"I sent you away." He glared at her, but was rebuffed by a familiar, stubborn expression.

"I am a hunter of the supernatural, and there are civilians in the next room that need protecting," Gen said firmly. "I'm not going."

"Why not!" he yelled. Was she that determined to die for him? "Rose, why don't you ever stay safe!" She was coming back, he knew that now. His Rose, not this strange girl whose hair was a little too short and a little too dark, and whose eyes were like chipped amber.

A cry from River brought him back to the present. He raced into the other room. Proper Dave had lost his second shadow, but the doctor knew that the Vashta Nerada never stopped, and never gave up, ever. He realized his gob was running away without him as he began to sonic the shadows around Proper Dave, almost violently. Gen was stepping forward to join him when Dave asked what had happened to the lights. The doctor froze.

"They're on," River responded, looking concerned.

"I can't see a ruddy thing," said Dave, his voice strong and angry.

"Dave," said the Doctor cautiously. "Turn around."

"Why can't I see?" he asked. "Is the power gone? Are we safe here?!"

The man's back arched, and it sounded as if thousands of insects were crawling inside his spacesuit. Then, the noise stopped. Maybe he just had imagined it.

"Mm fine," Dave mumbled, and made to take a step forward.

"Stay where you are." The Nerada would be on him like a pack of hyenas if he so much as moved. They were always hungry, and they never gave up ever, even when they should.

"I'm okay, I'm fine," Dave reassured him again. The Doctor straightened slowly.

"I'm fine, why can't, why can't I, I can't, why can't I?" his voice seemed oddly metallic. He repeated those words mercilessly, and his com unit flickered.

"He's ghosting," River realized. She still had his screwdriver. Who had given it to her?

"Why is he still standing then?" Lux argued.

"Hey, who turned out the lights?" Dave repeated.

Too many people had died already. Too many people were not coming back.

ooo

"Doctor don't!" River shouted. Rose turned swiftly. The Doctor had been about to lift Dave's helmet. He was too close, and the skeleton grabbed his shoulders. Gen shot it twice, causing it to stagger, and the Doctor wrenched himself free

"Back from him, back, get back!" the Doctor ordered harshly. "Rose, why do you still have that gun?"

"Is that really your greatest concern right now?" Rose yelled back, as Not-Dave took a rigid step forward. She had pinched it off him when they'd hugged earlier.

"Have your little domestic later, right now, we need you to calm down and think!" River interrupted. "It doesn't move very fast, so we're probably fine for the time being."

"It's a swarm in a suit, but it's learning," the Doctor replied ominously.

A blast behind her made her turn. River had shot at the door, but not the lock. Gen thought she had gone mad, but then an opening appeared.

"Squareness gun!" the doctor shouted in recognition.

"Out, everybody, go, go, go!" the woman shouted. Rose looked back. Like Cerberus in the old tales, Dave's three shadows were growing.

Once everyone was through, River turned to the doctor "You said not every shadow?"

"But any shadow!" he shouted back.

Something was emitting a dim green glow. _Must be the lamps_ she thought.

"Are you all right?" asked Anita, shrinking back slightly. The light was her.

_No, no, _she thought frantically, _you can't do this to me, No!_

The skeleton continued to lumber towards them. "Hey, who turned out the lights?"

"Run!" River yelled, and the doctor grabbed Gen's hand, holding it so tight his grasp was almost painful as they booked it, the skeleton in close pursuit. They raced down hallways and ducked between shelves until they lost it vastness of the library.

The Doctor kicked a stool under the light and began to sonic it as it flickered.

"Trying to boost the power." His voice was slightly muffled "might slow them down."

"Doctor, your girlfriend!" warned one of the archaeologists, shielding his eyes. Gen was glowing brightly now.

"What's going on? Is she alright?" River asked frantically. The doctor looked at her.

"It's been a day," he realized softly. He dropped down, still staring at her.

Gen was shaking her head. "No, no please don't do this; I need to help them, please!" Her body became insubstantial, then resolved. Sweat beaded her forehead.

"Let it go, Rose, we'll be fine." His voice was so soothing…

"Liar," she managed to grit out, her body shaking with effort. River aimed her own screwdriver at the lights while the doctor was distracted, and they stopped flickering.

"It's just like his," Gen grinned, the strain making her loopy. _Ben brushed her hair back, smiling. She had just saved his life._

"I teleported Donna back to the TARDIS," the Doctor continued. "If we're not back within five hours emergency program one will activate."

"It will take her home, Rose." River confirmed. "Back to earth."

Gen shook her head, sweat beading her forehead. Her whole body was fighting her.

"Emergency program one. She burned up like a sun." Rose choked softly, sweat beading her brow. "Tell me Doctor, have you done any stargazing lately?"

The Doctor stepped forward. "What did you say?"

_Ben was hugging her tightly and swearing angrily. He had thought she was dead._

"We need to get a move on!" shouted Anita, looking down the corridor.

"Golden green, greening gold. Ten are there, six are here, but where's the seventh?"

"Rose, you have to let go! Your mind can't take the strain."

"Ring around the Rosie, the jewel was stolen, and the singing tree is empty. Nope, can't be right. Doesn't rhyme." Her breathing was ragged. "She's gone but she's saved."

"Will you tell her to shut it!" snapped Mr. Lux.

The Doctor didn't look up. He had checked his sonic. "Donna's not in the TARDIS. I should have received a signal."

He raced up to the nearest droid and asked frantically, "Donna Noble! Is there a Donna Noble in this library, do you have the software to locate her!?"

"Donna Noble has left the library," said the droid in an eerily familiar voice, turning. "Donna Noble has been saved."

Rose cried out. There were white spots behind her eyes. She must have fired one of Ben's flash bombs and forgotten to look away. He would be furious.

"Donna," breathed the Doctor, looking at the face on the droid, eyes full of pain.

"How can it be Donna," asked River, but Gen barely heard her. She was concentrating as hard as she could; she knew that she could not stay, but by God none of the other girls would take her place. She screamed in agony, the Doctor turned, and she heard something about those stupid lights again. She couldn't care less what had happened to them, they were gone!

_Ben was leading her back to their table at the club, dance over. He was all business, saying that she was too drunk to drive and it seemed that only a few seconds later, he was carrying her up to her motel room. He tucked her in and kissed her forehead as she closed her eyes, and then whispered something in her ear._

_ He had thought that she wasn't paying attention._


	18. Interlude: Save the World

"Is 'I'm always alright' some special code for not alright at all?"

Donna's words rang in the Doctor's ears as he headed back towards the TARDIS. The sacrifice of Professor River song saddened him, but he had left her in a heaven of a sort. Everyone had lived, so why did he feel so wretched?

He felt for Donna, who could not quite meet his eyes as they returned to the TARDIS. Perhaps her family had been only a few lines of computer code, but they were real to her. She had thought she found the man of her dreams, only to learn that he never existed.

He was alright. Really. He just couldn't… process the implications of Gen's ravings. Rose, alone. Rose, unprotected. Rose, wounded and desperately trying to find him.

Almost on autopilot, the Doctor made a few calls that he probably should have done right after Kay showed up on the TARDIS. Funny how words like 'should' and 'must' seemed less important where Rose Tyler was concerned. He had even hesitated before saving the world— not once, twice— because he had been so afraid of losing her. Now, she was coming back. Rose was coming back. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. He tried to say the words aloud, just to hear how they sounded, but his throat closed up and he couldn't force them out.

ooo

Rose appeared in the library seconds after the TARDIS dematerialized. She had pinpointed the signal as best she could, but she still hadn't arrived in time.

Really, this was getting ridiculous. She should just throw herself on her father's mercy, retire, and write a best-selling guide on how to find a man who had access to all of time and space. She even had the punch line: you don't.

"D-donn-Donna?" A dark-haired man in his mid-thirties was racing around the library, his voice somehow carrying above the general hubbub.

"Have you seen my wife?" he asked her. "I j-just saw her, b-but she did-dn't see me."

His voice pulled her out of her self-absorption. "No, I don't think so, but I can help you look for her. What's she like?"

Eventually he managed to stammer that she was loud and had red hair. Rose instantly recognized the description.

"Is her name Donna Noble?"

The man nodded enthusiastically, looking relieved. How could he possibly be Donna's husband? She was from the 21st century and he—He didn't deserve any of this; none of them did.

"What's your name?" Rose asked.

Lee had been visiting the library to research a project for his boss when the Vashta Nerada attacked. His family was dead, and he had nowhere to go.

Rose sighed. She knew it could go wrong, _reapers devouring the entire the galaxy _wrong, but… she needed to help him. She had to be able to save at least one person. Otherwise, what was the point of it all?

"Come with me."


	19. Here There Be

Marilyn, Day 7

Donna and the Doctor had very different opinions on the art of relaxation, Marilyn mused as a handsome spa attendant drifted over, bearing a ringing phone.

Donna's idea of leisure involved lying by the poolside after soaking in a hot tub for hours upon hours while waiting for a massage, while the Doctor's involved going on some sort of educational excursion. Naturally, Marilyn supported the former.

Donna hit speakerphone so she didn't have to pick up the receiver.

"I said," she started ominously. "No."

"Sapphire waterfall, it's a waterfall made of sapphires!" the doctor argued. "This enormous jewel the size of a glacier reaches the cliffs of oblivion and then shatters into sapphires at the edge, and they fall a hundred thousand feet into a crystal ravine," he finished, loosing himself to his own enthusiasm.

"Bet you say that to all the girls," Donna joked.

The voice at the other end began to sound petulant. "Well what about you, Marilyn? What do you say? I bet you know some screen-writers who would love to get a load of this."

"Not a chance," laughed Marilyn.

"Aww, come on you two, they're boarding now! It no fun sitting on me own, four hours, that's all it would take," he pleaded.

"No, that's four hours there and four hours back that's like a school trip! I'd rather go sunbathing!" Donna replied reasonably, mouth twitching.

"I need to work on my tan anyway," Marilyn added.

"And then the massage tables…"

"Facials…"

"and pedicures!" She and Donna high-fived across the little table.

The Doctor shuddered at their excess of estrogen. "Just be careful, that's extonic sunlight."

"We're safe, it says in the brochure that this glass is fifteen feet thick." Donna replied.

"Oh, alright, I give up, I'll be back in time for dinner. We'll try that antigravity restaurant, with bibs."

"Catch me wearing one." Marilyn shuddered delicately.

"But the bibs are part of the experience!"

"You aren't my agent, you can't tell me what to do," she replied, stretching luxuriously.

"Blimey, that's not how that sentence usually goes."

"Oh, get off," Donna intervened.

"See ya later," the Doctor smiled.

"Oi, and you be careful, alright?" Donna warned.

"Nah, taking a giant space tram with strangers across a planet called Midnight, what could possibly go wrong?" He rang off.

"He does realize that what he said is as bad as 'I'll be right back' or 'not a scratch.'" Marilyn smiled.

"Well, knowing 'im, he probably jinxed it on purpose," Donna sighed.

"Men," Marilyn said with disgust, slipping on a pair of borrowed sunglasses.

They sat in companionable silence for a while.

"Well, what about you, what's your story?" asked Donna.

"I already told you I'm an actress," Marilyn replied, confused.

"There's got to be more to a person than their profession."

"The powers that be made an exception in my case." Marilyn replied lightly. Donna looked at her skeptically.

"There's not much to tell. Discovered by a talent scout who attended a school play when I was eight, first major role in a motion picture five months later, been working ever since."

"What about your family? They must be proud."

Marilyn looked at the couple on the other side of the swimming pool. "Mum is, but she keeps my head from getting too inflated. My Dad left when I was twelve."

Donna started to apologize, but Rose shook her head.

"No, it's alright. Even before that it was like it was just me and Mum anyway. Da was always so busy… how about you?"

"Mum doesn't approve of me, but I love my Grandda. He used to take me stargazing every weekend when I was younger; we'd sneak out some chocolates to eat on the way."

"How could your Mother not approve of you? You-you're Donna Noble!" Marilyn exclaimed.

"Thanks for that, but Donna Noble's just a temp really."

"There's got to be more to a person than their profession," Marilyn parroted.

Donna laughed, and some of the tension eased.

"Mind you, the Doctor needs some smacking around sometimes."

"Oh yeah," Marilyn agreed, her eyes taking a distant look.

"What about you, do you have a bloke?" Donna asked.

Marilyn sighed. "Couple of fiancées, neither ended well."

"Mine left me in front of the altar for a woman who was half spider."

Rose laughed cynically "My first fiancée walked out of a meeting with my agent with a check for £20,000 in his pocket."

"That's awful!" Donna cried. "Why'd he do that?"

"My agent thought he was a no good schmoozer out for publicity. Mind you, he wasn't wrong."

"Still doesn't make it right," argued Donna. "And the other one?"

"Had a son with some girl in Kent."

"I fell in love with a man who doesn't exist." Donna commiserated.

Marilyn bit her lip, and looked like she was about to reply, but just then, the spa attendant reappeared.

"Ms. Tyler, Ms. Noble, were you two by any chance traveling with a man called the Doctor?"

"Sort of, why?"

His grim expression said everything.

ooo

Rose and Donna were both waiting for him at the loading docks when the rescue plane landed. The doctor ran forward to hug Donna, and watched with confusion as Marilyn stormed past him, heading for the Canes.

"You….." here she shouted a few words in Latin that the TARDIS refused to translate for Donna, but to which the Doctor listened in awe. Finally she paused for breath.

"But I didn't do anything!" Mrs. Cane defended herself. "I barely survived!"

"Leave my wife alone!" said Mr. Cane, but his voice lacked enthusiasm. "We all could have died today, because of this stinking place."

"That's right, we're all victims here." the Professor chimed in.

Marilyn sniffed. "Oh, a victim, are you? Join the quadrillion plus other intelligent life-forms in the universe!"

A crowd was beginning to form.

"Rose, I'd really prefer it if you didn't make a scene," the Doctor said quietly. He was still hugging Donna.

"I'm an actress. It's my bloody job to make scenes!"

The owners of the spa were not happy that they had to close down, but they had no choice. As it was, it would take would've taken them years to pay the damages that the passengers of the erstwhile tram had demanded, if Marilyn hadn't sweetly asked what story would be told in court. They dropped the case pretty quickly after that.

She was still fuming when dinner was served in their rooms. The Doctor was quiet as well, but when he mentioned that he was thirsty, she went to get him some water.

"You can get me one too while you're at it," Donna smiled weakly. To her surprise, Rose nodded before she left.

"She was out of her mind with worry." Donna told him quietly. The hours that they had spent in the waiting room outside the owner's office had been hell, with Marilyn staring straight ahead, deaf to her concerned questions. Then she had started glowing…

"I've only just met her."

Donna hesitated. "Doctor, I hate to mention it now, but she knows too much about you for a girl just reading a diary. So did Gen, and Kay. And it's not just you, she knew about Lee."

The Doctor gave no answer, and Marilyn returned with the water.

"What do you think it was?" Donna asked, referring to the monster.

"There is one possibility," the Doctor admitted, then frowned. "No, it can't be, or at least, it could only have been a less powerful one, otherwise all of us _would_ be dead."

"Less powerful!" Donna exclaimed in disbelief. "It nearly killed you, you daft alien!"

"Care to share with the class, then, Doctor?" Marilyn said in the silence that followed.

"Oh er, right," the Doctor massaged his temples. "You see there was this… civilization that had a nasty habit of imprisoning… spirits, for a lack of a better word, although I suppose to say 'essences' would be more accurate, in, well, stones."

Rose shifted uncomfortably, then leaned forward as the Doctor continued.

"It's always the same story, really. A group of sentient beings stumbles upon a crystal of some sort, and, well, they don't leave it be. As a result, it possesses them and allows them to do things that are… impossible, to say the least." He gazed at the wall, bleakly, then shook himself. "Ah, well, not our problem. It failed, it's still imprisoned. Let them build a leisure palace somewhere else, and leave… whatever it is to its sentence of eternity."

Rose quietly left. Donna jerked her head at the doctor to follow. He sighed, because he really didn't want to question her. She was nice, even apart from the fact that he was hopelessly in love with another version of her. But… she hadn't even hesitated before blaming Mrs. Cane, and there was no way that she could have known what had happened.

Marilyn was sitting cross-legged in front of the pool, staring across the water.

"I'm not a good person to be around right now. Go away." She didn't look at him.

"Well, neither am I at the moment, particularly." he sat down next to her.

After a few minutes, she shifted, and began to talk. "When I was thirteen… I missed about six months of school working on a film. I came back to find that I was a stranger in my own life. I… admit I was a little" here she used an Italian word, "and I enjoyed their jealousy. I was just angry about being alone, I guess. Then one day, an older boy invited me to a party that he and his friends were throwing…" she laughed shortly. "I was so excited."

The doctor winced.

"I… won't say much about what they tried to do to me. Not just them, but the girls that had been my friends," her voice grew stronger. "Then Mickey came roaring up in that rattletrap old car of his, the one he built himself. He drove up and they just… scattered."

She looked at him earnestly. "What you've seen today is, quite frankly, horrifying, a part of human nature that no one wants to own up too. That's why we need heroes I guess. Just one, average person, willing to sacrifice anything."

There was a strange lightening in the tension between them, and the doctor felt, just for a second, as if Canary Wharf had never happened and he was talking to Rose. _It wasn't your fault_ she would have said, and then, conceivably, _you aren't the only hero out there, you know_.

"This isn't my first Rodeo," the doctor replied, affecting a ridiculous American accent that made her smile. Then he sobered, thinking of the stewardess. "I know."

They were quiet for a while.

"So…" the doctor began.

"What?" Marilyn turned to look at him. He changed his mind.

"How did you learn to speak Italian? Or Latin for that matter, I mean really, wonderful languages, both of them but I would've thought your interests would be in other areas."

Marilyn clasped her hands in mock primness "I'm a good Catholic, I'll have you know."

"Are you now?" he grinned.

She batted her eyelashes. "Ooh yeah, I go to confession every Thursday and then again on Sunday."

The Doctor laughed. "Two confessions!"

"Each with its own confessor," Marilyn confirmed.

"What on earth do you get up to… never mind I don't want to know, but come to think of it, if you're Catholic than that probably means that your Mum's a Catholic, and if she's a Catholic, England… well, people… must be. What happened with King Henry the Eighth?"

Her brow wrinkled. "Who's that?"

Arguing amiably about the differences between her universe and his, they rejoined Donna. The three talked and laughed late into the night, but in the morning she was gone.


	20. Interlude: Myths

"Captain Jack Harkness, and you are?"

"Yvonne Hartman. Please, sit, the Chairman will be with you in a moment."

Pete was organizing his desk, which was technically his assistant's job, but he was running out of ways to procrastinate. After all, powerful men were supposed to keep people waiting. Deciding that _he _had waited long enough, Pete sighed, then buzzed the intercom.

"Show them in."

As soon as he gave permission, the door to his office opened and two agents entered.

Torchwood's morale wasn't at its best. Even the people who didn't know about the stars were affected; the tension in the air could be cut with a knife. He remembered a ship's captain who had said he feared mutiny only when his sailors stopped muttering.

The entire building was silent.

"Greetings, Commander. Thank you for receiving us on such short notice." The speaker was graying at the temples, and had a manner that was equal parts irony and politeness.

As a general rule, if time agents were happy, they had a gun to your head, but if they were polite, they would try to rob you blind first.

"Not at all Gentlemen," he replied after a suitable pause. "Who do I have the honor of addressing?"

He allowed a little sarcasm to creep into his voice. He should have been meeting a delegation of interplanetary diplomats, but had been forced to delay it to exchange niceties with glorified thugs.

"Of course. I am Lieutenant James Marsters, and this is my partner…"

"Captain Jack Harkness," grinned the taller man, extending his hand.

Pete shook it, suddenly grateful that Rose wasn't there. If that man worked for him, he would probably end up sending him to Cardiff.

"So, Lieutenant, Captain," he nodded to the older man, and they settled into the comfortable seats by the window used mostly for conferences "What can I do for you?"

"We've received some chatter that you are currently sanctioning inter-dimensional travel," the Lieutenant said, giving Pete a mild look that was probably meant to be intimidating.

Pete met his gaze evenly. "Gentlemen, I might remind you that Torchwood's cooperation with your agency is entirely down to our mutual interests and hard won good will."

"We also heard that your agent went AWOL with some rather advanced equipment. Surely you have a vested interest in getting it back. May I?" He was pointing to the sideboard.

"Please," Pete replied, his expression unchanging. The younger man prowled around his office, flicking a Grecian urn as he passed it. "Careful that's genuine."

Jackie had bought it at an auction for a ridiculous amount of money, but her evident pride as she presented it to him made it worth every penny. She thought that Rose was working undercover.

"Ah, Jason and the Golden Fleece, curious choice."

"My wife picked it."

"She has good taste."

Pete was not amused. "Torchwood's operations are strictly Torchwood's business."

The Captain spoke up for the first time. "Look Mr. Chairman, all due respect, but, inter-dimensional travel isn't in your jurisdiction."

"I'm sure we don't have to remind you about what happened four years ago," added the lieutenant, returning with his whisky.

"I'm glad to see you studied your history."

The Captain sighed, and came out with it. "We have an arrest warrant for your daughter."

"She's not here. I'm surprised that you weren't briefed on that particular fact."

"We know. But as a concerned father, you must have some way to trace her." Captain Jack said with a reasonable smile.

Pete simply raised an eyebrow. He was about to speak when they were interrupted by a knock on the door. What was his secretary doing, playing solitaire?

"Come in," he called, allowing none of his annoyance to cross his face.

A young man in a business suit entered.

"Sir, this came in from forensics, they said I should bring it straight to you… am I interrupting something?"

"Just leave it on the desk Ianto, thank you."

The Captain eyed the man appreciatively, walked over to the desk and held out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness, and you are…?"

"Ianto Jones."

Pete cleared his throat, and Ianto left, but not before casting a curious look at the visitors.

It was time to get rid of them. "Thank you for your concern, but Torchwood is already attempting to regain the equipment. However, the best of our intelligence suggests that although she is no longer working for us, she is still trying to complete her mission's objective. I'm sure that your agency has better things to do than chase a hormonal woman across the cosmos."

The Lieutant didn't answer at first, but when he finally spoke, his tone made the small hairs on the back of Pete's neck prickle.

"And the land of Colchis prospered for a hundred years," he mused "Is that how you see yourself, Mr. Chairman? As the purveyor of this universe's prosperity?"

"Not really."

"His sister died."

"Excuse me?"

"Cadmus's sister, Helle." He pointed to the picture on the vase. "When the ram was rescuing them, she tumbled to her death in the vast ocean. Afterwards he killed the beast."

"He sacrificed it to Poseidon, who had sent it to rescue him. It was his way of showing gratitude," Pete replied, shooting the man Marsters a sharp look. What was he getting at?

"Interesting." asked the Captain, treating them both to a charming, if slightly strained smile. "I'd love to hear more but we need to get going. Now."

Neither man answered him.

"Even so, I can't help but wonder whether the ram might have lived if she hadn't died." Marsters lowered his voice conspiratorially. "You know, I think that the Gods killed her on purpose, because the world just wasn't ready for that kind of power."

Pete smiled thinly. "Or to make sure the mortals wouldn't create another Olympus."

"Fascinating theories, I'm sure they have lectures about that kind of stuff in universities!" The younger man steered his partner towards the door.

The lieutenant looked back. "Oh, yes, Jack, absolutely. While we're here, we may as well visit the _museums_."

He shook his partner off and swept out of the room.

Pete slowly walked to his desk, seething. To distract himself, he picked up the report on his desk and flipped through it. What he saw caused the creases around his eyes to deepen. He pulled out a phone from the bottom drawer of his desk and dialed.

"Smith." said Mickey, answering immediately.

"Do we have anyone trustworthy in the photo analysis section," he demanded without preamble.

"Wha- oh, yes sir, that's where Adeola Jones was transferred last month."

"Send her up."

As he listened to the _click-click _of Yvonne's typewriter, and the bored rumble of the security guard, his mind drifted to his last conversation with Rose.

_ "…deal with such insubordination for the sake of some… object."_

_ "It's not an object! It's alive, and it's more powerful than we are! You can't just ignore that. I never should have brought it back here!"_

_ "You're not qualified to make that call, Agent!"_

_ Pete regarded them both coolly. _

_ "Were you on duty?_

_ "What?" Smithers looked wrong-footed._

_ "When all this happened, were either of you on duty?"_

_ "No sir, but I _knew_ that she would—"_

_ He cut him off._

_ "An agent not on duty is a trespasser on these grounds, and neither of you had the night shift." Smithers looked as if he had been punched in the stomach. "However, while we're here, we may as well decide the matter. The object's been in the IR department for weeks. What is your opinion, agent?" Pete asked, addressing his daughter._

_She looked at Smithers doubtfully. _

_ "Rose." He prompted again._

She had begged him to let it go, but had refused explain why. Smithers, in turn, had pointed to the potential of the power it contained. He saw the crystal as little more than a battery meant for Torchwood's use. He remembered his daughter's face as it had been then, white with outrage, and something that he couldn't immediately identify. Fear?

In the end, Pete was forced to put the case on hold pending an investigation of the claim that it was conscious. He had dismissed everyone except Rose after his decision.

_ "Why don't come over to the house tomorrow. Jackie worries about you, and Tony misses his big sister."_

_ "I'm already taking him to the Natural History Museum tomorrow," Rose argued._

_ "Your Mother's making pot roast," he enticed._

_ "Oh, God, is that supposed to convince me!" _

_ "I just want you to share in the enjoyment," he quipped._

_ She smiled, shaking her head, and turned to leave. He began writing again._

_ "Dad…"Her voice was suddenly vulnerable.  
He looked up. She rarely called him that. "Yes, Rose?"_

_ "Nothing."_

Perhaps if he had pressed her, she would have told him. Perhaps not. He had always balanced his affection as a father with the authority of a boss, but that didn't mean he hadn't loved her. He had thought that he knew her, but it was clear that she had never truly trusted him. If she had, he wouldn't have been so surprised at the contents of the document he now held.

The document that verified his daughter had stopped aging.


	21. Faulty Connections

Ana, Day 8

"I think she's waking up."

Rose gave a groan of denial. Her body felt like it was being compressed by thousands of rubber bands, and her brain threatened to burst from her skull. She couldn't even crack an eyelid.

"Hold on, Ms. Tyler," the same voice commanded. Suddenly, she could move.

She opened her eyes slowly. She was on an examination table in some sort of laboratory, all white walls and steel doors. It looked like a combination between prison and warehouse.

_Where am I? _Rose asked silently.

_Torchwood, but don't worry. They'll let you out once they verify that you're not… that you're you._

_ That's reassuring._

The voice laughed, and Ana realized that she was talking to Kay. Kay was pretending to be sick in Rosie's world, as she didn't particularly fancy explaining to her father how she woke up six months pregnant.

"Which one are you?"

Ana moved her head so that she was looking at the speaker. He was tall, bespectacled, and wearing a lab coat.

"The… environmentalist I guess," she said, tasting the words as she said them. They didn't quite sound right. Even after all this time, she felt the glaring omission.

"Ah, yes, very good," Spectacles replied, watching the monitor. Rose craned her neck to look, but she didn't recognize the technology. It was more advanced than she was used to, which surprised her. Most of the other universes had been technologically backwards compared to her own.

_Oi! _Gen protested.

_You know what I mean._

Spectacles interrupted her again. "There is no preliminary radiation damage as far as I can tell, but I advise that the subject remain recumbent as her heart rate is slightly depressed."

He was talking to a man who looked to be in his late twenties. His dark clothing and spiky hair made him look like more of a punk than a Torchwood agent, and the contrast between his fair hair and dark eyes gave him a perpetually intense expression.

Something occurred to her. "Excuse me, but what exactly did you just inject me with?"

They both looked down at her, and the second man grinned. "Don't worry, Insect here isn't actually poisonous. Just don't give him the chance to talk you to death."

"Delightful as always, Mr. Simmonds," said Insect dryly. He took Ana's pulse, pulled back her eyelids, and then surprised her by touching her forehead lightly. His hands were dry and gentle.

"Will I be allowed out of here?" she asked him.

"Of course not, you're our prisoner," Simmonds grinned.

She frowned. "Really?"

"No. You're free to leave." His face gave nothing away.

"Very funny I'm sure. What's your name?"

"Jake."

"Well, Jake, did you know that the plastic in the heels of those boots you're wearing is responsible for half the world's pollution?"

"You're in an alternate universe," he pointed out.

"She's not wrong," the man in the lab coat told him, winking at her. She smiled.

"Et tu Pearson?" Jake groaned theatrically.

"That's Insect to you," Pearson retorted, gathering up his papers. He looked at Ana. "No strenuous activity for the next couple hours, and drink plenty of fluids."

Rose nodded mutely, and gave Jake an arch look as the other man left.

"Well, if you don't need anything else, I think I'll just…" she hopped to her feet but swayed and nearly fell as the blood rushed to her head.

Jake stepped forward to steady her. "Any chance of you making this easy for me?"

"Nope." She smiled, and leaned back on the table, refusing his support.

"Well then." He looked at her appraisingly. The silence stretched.

"Are we going to just stand here all day then?" she asked impatiently.

"No. In fact, we are going to do the very thing that has saved the world even more often than the Doctor," he said, eyes gleaming.

Rose was interested despite herself. "And what's that then?"

"Paperwork."

She wouldn't have minded if he had been joking that time, Ana reflected as she mechanically stamped DECLASSIFIED over the documents that he handed her. Most of the other files were put in a pile marked INCINERATE. The silence would have driven her mad if it hadn't been for Kay, who also needed someone to alleviate the boredom.

She stole a glance at Jake. He had started humming. Ana realized with a jolt that she actually recognized the tune. She sang a few of the words, and he looked up, surprised.

"What, you've never heard Rose sing before?"

"Only when she was too plastered to carry a tune properly."

Ana laughed. "I took singing lessons," she admitted, and then changed the subject. "They have Rage against the Machine in your universe?"

"Their music is pretty universal."

Ana had smacked his arm.

"Ow!" he protested, rubbing it.

"How can you stand all this paperwork?" she burst out.

A corner of his mouth turned up. "My regular job is a bit more exciting."

"Why aren't you doing it then?" Ana asked curiously.

"My partner decided to take a vacation."

_Oh. _"Can't you do it without her, though?"

"Of course I can," Jake snorted. End of conversation.

"Then why… Oh don't you dare!" Ana exclaimed, ducking the paper airplane that Jake had chucked at her.

"Infant," she accused. He just chuckled, and Ana couldn't help but smile.

Tension broken, they laughed and chatted for the next few minutes. Jake refused to answer her questions seriously, but his lies were so amusing that she listened anyway. As the time went on silence fell, and Ana started reading some of the reports.

"Why are you working with these creeps?" she blurted out, looking up from one.

"Where did that come from?" Jake asked. He put down his coffee mug, and leaned over the table. "We're not creeps, Ana, I promise. We're the good guys."

"Riiight." Ana glanced down at her papers.

"What's your problem with Torchwood, anyway?"

"I resent any self-entitled government agency that keeps things from people 'for their own safety,' and shuts people away for knowing too much, or disagreeing…"

"It must be really hard, knowing everything." Jake replied sarcastically.

"I didn't say that!" Rose snapped. She held up the report that she had been stamping, "Jake, just look! Unrest growing in the streets, approval ratings at an all-time low, twenty instances of insubordination in the last week alone…"

Jake threw up his hands. "Whoah there Rosa Parks! First of all…"

"…that has _nothing _to do with you guys obviously; the public must be misinformed…"

"My God, do you ever stop? Seriously Ana, if I didn't know any better, I'd think that you were compensating for something with all this true believer stuff."

Ana glared. "Maybe I am, but that has nothing to do…"

"You are so young."

"I'm 24," Rose replied automatically, derailed.

"Not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

Before he could answer, they were rudely interrupted.

Mickey walked down the hallway, rubbing his temples. A medical scan of Rose's had turned up somehow, and Pete was furious with him. He couldn't admit that Rose hadn't told him about her ageing problem without sounding like a liar, but he couldn't pretend that he'd known all along either. He had ended up muttering at the carpet while Pete raged.

Worse, the boss was right. If Rose didn't trust them, how could they trust her?

Despite his mood, he smiled when he remembered why he was down here. Jake was _voluntarily _sorting through ten years' worth of mission debriefs, usually punishment detail for the new recruits. They had helped Rose with hers so often that management had started to punish them together just to save time.

As he approached his friend's office, he saw a familiar blur of blond hair behind the glass and heard what sounded like a furious argument. Some things never changed.

He opened the door and the room went silent.

"Some people knock," Jake commented. He was perched on the edge of his desk.

"And others sort unnecessary paperwork when they should be typing up a report that was due two months ago."

"Mickey!" exclaimed the Rose that he had been arguing with. She jumped up and flung herself into his arms, but let go quickly. "Sorry."

"It's alright." It wasn't the worst way that he had been greeted that day.

"You're certainly popular this week." Jake smiled. Both of them looked and acted as if they had been conversing normally, and Mickey just shook his head. The more that changed…

"I have that effect on the ladies," he replied airily, kissing the top of Rose's head.

"I thought you had the day off."

"And I thought I heard you promise to wear that hideous watch Jackie gave you for Christmas. Lunch break started half-an-hour-ago."

Jake shot Mickey a glare as he searched his pockets and came up empty.

"No money."

"Miser. Come on, I'll take you two lovebirds out to lunch."

It really was too easy to tease them, Mickey reflected as he studiously ignored their sputtered protests.

Once they got to the parking lot, Rose was surprised to see them heading towards an expensive silver hybrid. When she asked whose car it was, both men just grinned at her.

As they exited Torchwood, Ana leaned over Jake to look out the window. The sky was full of zeppelins, and the whole city positively gleamed with health, but there was an unnatural stiltedness to the activity that they saw. Everyone they passed was in constant motion, all the benches at the parks were empty, and even the people walking their dogs kept glancing up as if they expected the sky to fall. It was rather how she thought a nation at war would look.

Mickey's voice broke into her thoughts. "So, Rose, what do you do for a living?"

"Ana here is a professional hippie," Jake replied.

"I can speak for myself, thank you very much," Ana said tartly.

"So you're not a hippie?" Jake grinned.  
"Dillon may have had one or two good points," she admitted.

"Hah!"

They drove to a nearby burger joint, the silver car looking incongruous in the dirty parking lot. Jake and Mickey kept her laughing through most of the lunch, she was enjoying herself despite the strange tension in the air until a question made her spew her coke.

"Sorry, what?" she gasped, eyes streaming.

"What's it like talking to five versions of yourself in your head," Mickey repeated. He held out a napkin, but Ana ignored it in her confusion.

She opened and closed her mouth.

"Rose told me," Mickey explained quietly.

"Which one?" Jake asked, leaning over to snag a fry from Ana.

"Not funny." Mickey snapped.

"Hey, Mick, lighten up."

Ana checked to see if any of the girls were listening.

"It's… awkward I guess. I mean, you can't really edit your thoughts."

"That stands to reason," Mickey leaned forward, expression sympathetic.

"It's not all bad though." He raised an eyebrow. "They're… company, sort of. It's like summer camp, you get stuck in a cabin with a bunch of strangers, but they're your best friends by the end of the week."

_Aww_.

Ana winced; she would never live this down.

_"Don't say anything" _she thought with as much menace as she could muster. In the background, she heard Mickey talking to Jake about some sort of operation.

_Marilyn laughed. "Your secret is safe with me."_

Loud voices brought her to the present.

"What did you just say?"

"You heard me."

"I must have heard wrong, because I could have sworn you said that Pete has found Rose's real genetic code. What the HELL have we been using then?"

"Jake, for god's sake, lower your voice…"  
"My voice is low. It's so low that they could hire me as third oboe in the Berlin orchestra." He snapped. "If you want me to behave in public places, you shouldn't say things like 'Your best friend's a mutant, pass the ketchup.'"

"Don't call her that. Just…don't." Ana interjected.

"I didn't mean…" Jake started, but Mickey interrupted.

"Did you know?"

"No, but…"

Mickey leaned back in his chair. "Look Ana, I don't know what she told you, but I— I don't know what to do."

"She's not there." They looked at her blankly. "In my mind. She never has been."

Jake looked at Mickey, and comprehension dawned. "Is that why we took Pete's car?"

Mickey threw down the check and they left.

During the ensuing argument, Ana learned rather more than she thought they meant her to. Apparently, someone had decided that it was a good idea to attach a powerful crystal to a supercomputer, and then enter a missing girl's DNA into it just for chuckles.

Once her indignation had abated somewhat, she conceded if Rose's real DNA was entered, they would all be in trouble. She couldn't see how to stop it, though, short of blowing up the building. Hacking the supercomputer would be tricky, to say the least, but they stood no chance of breaching the firewall remotely. There was nothing else for it; they were going to have to break into the most heavily guarded zone in all of Torchwood.

ooo

Jake returned her to the creepy warehouse she had woken up in, but she barely recognized it in the dimming light. He wouldn't come back for her until 2100 hours, and then they would use the elevator passes that Mickey had stolen to get to the lower levels.

A few minutes later, she caught herself nodding off, and pinched herself. She paced back and forth to keep her blood circulating, and vowed to get a watch as soon as she was home.

At last, Ana heard laughter and soft voices approaching. She tried to peek through the window, but it was tinted from the inside. The heavier tread retreated, but the quieter footsteps continued to advance. She felt a bit like a teenager sneaking out of her parent's house.

"Where the hell have you been?" she hissed.

"Admiring the picture of Hamish's new girlfriend," Jake looked at her critically. She was wearing the clothes he had sent her. "You'll do."

"Thanks," she replied sarcastically, striking a pose. She started to add something, but Jake put a finger to her lips. He walked freely the first couple hundred yards, and peered around the corner before doubling back and joining her in the shadows. Only then they start out.

They hurried down the corridors, keeping their heads down to avoid the security cameras. Without warning, Jake grabbed her hand and yanked her into a crevice by a vending machine. She could hear his heart beating as two lab assistants ambled past, clearly at the end of their shift.

Seconds passed with no sound but the distant hum of voices. Rose nervously readjusted her glasses. They started out again.

_"Quit ducking about, you're making yourself more visible,." Gen snapped._

_ "For god's sake stop touching those glasses, you're acting like a kid in a costume." Kay scolded. The other girls chimed in their suggestions, until Ana blocked them out._

When they reached the elevator, Ana was surprised by its normalcy. It wouldn't have looked out of place in the shopping mall near her apartment in New London. Unfortunately, what was normal to her probably wasn't to this universe, if the impressions of her companions were anything to go by. The sound of the elevator dinging brought her out of her abstraction.

"How are you doing that?" she mouthed at him.

"Mickey," he mouthed back. The doors opened and he pulled her inside. There was a row of elevator buttons, marked LL1, LL2, all the way down to a large orange one at the bottom marked BCT. Naturally, they pressed that one.

"It's safe for us to speak now." Jake spoke at full volume.

"You don't say."

He laughed, and Ana managed a tight grin. The lift continued its descent.

"Thank you for doing this."

Jake smiled. He had a nice smile, why hadn't she noticed.

"All part of the service, miss," He replied, affecting an upper-class accent.

The doors opened, and Jake and Ana exited the lift. The room was empty. Whatever Mickey had told the security staff, it had worked. Ana squinted at the writing on the screen of the supercomputer, but couldn't quite make it out.

"This is too easy," she whispered to Jake, who nodded agreement. Then she saw it.

She forgot all that she had learned about Torchwood's frankly paranoid defense system. She forgot that she was in an alternate universe. She wasn't quite sure she knew her own name.

The crystal glowed with a soft green light, but it wasn't a crystal, not exactly. _An unfinished carving_ Rose decided, _yes, that's it. _But what of?

The subdued squish of rubber soles made Jake turn. Rose was walking towards the crystal, its glow obscuring her expression. What was she thinking!? He still needed to disable the alarms. The damn girl would be blown to bits!

Jake called after her but she didn't seem to hear him. He ran to the computer and began typing frantically, but strings upon strings of computer code impeded his progress. Password, password, what was the password! The closer she got, the more likely she would trigger some alarm. In sheer desperation, he typed in the first seven letters on the keyboard, hit enter, and stared at the screen in disbelief. He was in.

He quickly found the defenses that Ana should have hit by now. They registered nothing. There was an electronic force field that would shock whoever touched it with a hundred times the force of a stun gun right in front of her. She stepped through it as if it wasn't there.

At first she only looked at the crystal, tilting her head curiously. Then she reached out a hand and touched it. The lights turned red, and alarms blared.


End file.
